(1262,2,'Her students dressed her in a gold cape and handmade crown, the school board named a kindergarten classroom in her honor and the mayor declared it ``Nellie M. Karrey Day.\'\' It was all part of a celebration by this western Massachusetts city for the teacher who, for more than a half-century, has gently introduced its children to school. ``It was such a surprise. It was a big secret and the children didn\'t tell,\'\' Miss Karrey, 78, said Friday. ``They were awfully cute.\'\'\' She will retire this month after 54 years of teaching, including 51 in North Adams kindergarten classrooms. She and her three sisters, also teachers, never wanted to do anything else, Miss Karrey said. ``I don\'t like cooking and I don\'t like gardening, but kindergarten was my niche.\'\' The celebrations began Thursday with a gala assembly at Greylock Elementary School where, with a paper crown perched on her gray curls, she accepted each class\' handmade tributes, poems and cheers as well as proclamations from local and national politicians. A fifth-grade class changed the lyrics of ``She\'s Coming Around the Mountain\'\' and sang ``She gave us birthday cards and pulled our teeth ... she taught all my aunts and uncles and grandpa, too.\'\' ``One of the classes gave her a quilt, and put in it some of the things that she was noted for, such as the clay handprints,\'\' said Principal Stephen A. Boisvert. ``Every Christmas for as long as I can remember she has had each of the children in her class make an imprint of their hand in clay. And then she paints the imprints so they can give them to their parents. They have become family treasures,\'\' he said. Thursday evening, more than 300 of her former students turned out for an open house at the school. In keeping with one of her traditions, each of Miss Karrey\'s former students received a lollipop. ``She had a large tent in her classroom with a candle on top and a box of lollipops inside and whenever one of the children had a birthday they would light the candle and the child whose birthday it was would get to pass out a lollipop to everyone in the class,\'\' Boisvert said. ``She\'s an outstanding teacher, because of her flexibility and her warm relationship with the children,\'\' Boisvert said. Each fall for the 23 years he has been at the school, he said, she has gleefully reported that this was her best class ever. Five-year-olds, Miss Karrey said, haven\'t changed much over the past 50 years. ``They\'re all sweet as youngsters,\'\' she said. ``The smart ones are very smart now, because of all the opportunities they have to go places and be exposed to things through television and VCRs,\'\' she said. ``And the others I\'m not going to tell you about.\'\' As for teacher burnout, Miss Karrey scoffed. ``I don\'t know what they are talking about,\'\' she said. ``I love the children and I\'ll miss them terribly.\'\'\r\n');
INSERT INTO `corpora` VALUES (1263,2,'Bankers who lend money for housing urged President-elect George Bush on Thursday to take early steps against rising home mortgage rates and said they favor a broad-based tax increase if necessary to ease the deficit and save the housing market. ``We hope ... that the Bush administration, as a last resort, will not foreclose the option of raising new revenues if necessary to bring down the deficit,\'\' said Warren Lasko, executive vice president of the Mortgage Bankers Association. ``He has to find a way to step away from his read-my-lips philosophy,\'\' said Lasko, referring to Bush\'s campaign pledge not to raise taxes. But Lasko told a news conference that housing lenders would oppose any effort by the administration or Congress to eliminate or reduce the income tax deduction home buyers can take on their mortgage interest. He said such a move would be a tax increase. Lasko said the association, which represents 2,800 mortgage companies and other lenders, hopes Bush will give increased attention to housing in line with his promise for a ``kinder, gentler nation.\'\' He said the new president and Congress will have ``an opportunity to weave a stronger thread of home ownership and housing opportunity into the social fabric of the nation.\'\' The association says home ownership is declining in relation to the population, with eight percent fewer families headed by men and women between the ages of 30 and 34 owning homes now than did when Reagan was first elected in 1980. It also says home buying takes a bigger bite out of family income, rents are higher, low-income housing is scarcer, vacancies are higher among high-income units, and 9.5 million American families live in substandard housing. Lasko criticized the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Reagan for failing to work with Congress or with state and local officials to combat the housing problem. ``HUD has been negligent in recent years in not attending to the fact that housing and community building are to be carried out with governors and mayors,\'\' he said. Lasko noted that interest rates on home mortgages have been creeping up in the past week and said they could reach 11 percent by the end of the year, further slowing housing markets. Increases in the amount of public and private debt tend to push interest rates up, and Lasko said the United States has become a nation ``addicted to debt.\'\' He said Bush\'s first priority for benefitting housing should be to decrease the deficit. ``Nothing affects housing affordability more than interest rates,\'\' he said.\r\n'),(1264,2,'A consumer group says it will sue the Consumer Product Safety Commission if it doesn\'t do something about what the group sees as the threat of cancer lurking in children\'s sand piles. A commission officials said Thursday there is no evidence that commercial play sand causes cancer, but the commission will make a formal decision on a petition to ban limestone products, including play sand, in September. Industry officials say if sand from the nation\'s rock quarries caused cancer, there would be higher instances of the disease among workers in the centuries-old industry. Public Citizen, a non-profit organization which fights for product safety and public health, said in a news release Thursday that many of the nation\'s children could be exposed to play sand that contains dangerous asbestos or asbestos-like tremolite fibers. ``During the hot summer of 1988 your children may be playing in the sandbox. Would you want them to be breathing asbestos as they pour buckets of sand over each other?\'\' the consumer group asked. Asbestos fibers have been proven to cause cancer when inhaled. Children who are exposed to them may not be afflicted until many years after exposure, the group said. In a letter to the product safety commission, Public Citizen said that if the agency does not indicate within 30 days that it plans to resolve the issue, the group will consider legal action. Appeals to the safety commission to protect workers and consumers from exposure to rock-based fibers date back 12 years. In May, the agency said it had evaluated several play sand samples and did not find asbestos in any of them. Public Citizen, however, said sand sold under two brand names, Basins Play Sand and Quickrete Kiddie\'s Fun Sand, have been shown by tests to contain tremolite, a rock-forming mineral that can occur in an asbestos form. ``No one knows how many other brands may be similarly contaminated,\'\' the group said. An official of Package Pavement of Stormville, N.Y., a distributor of Kiddie\'s Fun Sand, said five outside tests have been conducted on its sand and none found harmful ingredients. ``All indications are that there is no such fiber in our play sand,\'\' said Eileen Doherty, vice president for marketing. She said sand from a quarry in Connecticut does contain tremolite, but in a crystalline form which is not harmful. Sandra Eberle, safety commission program manager for chemical hazards, said no one has found true asbestos in play sand. She said the fiber-like particles that have raised concern are not tremolite asbestos but ultra-thin cleavages from crystalline tremolite that occur in some marble-based sand. ``It\'s very upsetting to us because parents get naturally terrified. I\'ve spent a lot of time on the phone telling people this is not asbestos,\'\' she said. Ms. Eberle said, however, that the commission is still considering a petition by New Jersey geologist and physician Mark Germine to ban all limestone products, including play sand, lawn and garden limestone and consumer gravel products. Rick Renninger of the National Stone Association, which represents the industry, said the claim of cancer-causing ingredients in sand is old and is not backed up by the evidence. ``We produce a billion tons of stone a year in the United States, and we\'ve been doing it for a couple of hundred years,\'\' he said. ``I think that there\'d be evidence of asbestos disease problems in people exposed for their entire working lives, and there simply isn\'t.\'\' Renninger said tremolite is among the most common rock-forming minerals and is found in almost every rock product. Public Citizen researcher Dr. Lynn Silver, a pediatrician, accused sand distributors of trying to hide the danger of their products. ``The industry throws up a smokescreen,\'\' she said in an interview. ``If somebody dies from falling off the left side of a skyscraper, they tell you there\'s nothing to prove that falling off the right side is also dangerous.\'\'\r\n'),(1265,2,'American corporations that owe taxes to Panama will be allowed the U.S. foreign tax credit if payments are made to the government of ousted President Eric Arturo Delvalle, the Internal Revenue Service said Friday. The announcement was aimed at discouraging U.S. businesses from sending tax payments to the Panamanian government controlled by military strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega, which Washington does not recognize. Some large U.S.-based multinational firms recently made quarterly tax payments just in time to give that government a desperately needed infusion of cash. The foreign tax credit is designed to prevent two national governments from taxing the same dollar of income. In general, the United States will not tax income that an American corporation earns in and pays taxes on to a foreign country. The IRS announcement is the latest move in the U.S. effort to squeeze Noriega, who has been indicted in the United States on drug-trafficking charges. Delvalle, who is in hiding, has directed that all tax payments due his country be paid through the Panamanian Embassy in Washington into a special account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. ``This notice confirms that income taxes due to the government of Panama which are paid into such account will be considered paid to the government of Panama, and will therefore be creditable foreign taxes if all other requirements\'\' of the law are met, an IRS statement said. The White House, in declaring Thursday that such an announcement would be forthcoming, cautioned that U.S. businesses might expect some sanctions if they continue turning over money to Noriega. A spokesman for Eastern Airlines said the company had recently paid the Noriega government $178,000 in monthly rentals and landing fees. Texaco, Inc., routinely paid income, sales and excise taxes for March, said spokesman Peter Maneri, and sees no conflict with the position of the U.S. government. ``We do not become involved in any political activity in a host nation; we\'re just doing business down there,\'\' Maneri said.\r\n'),(1266,2,'U.S. airlines had their most fatal air crashes last year since 1968 but the government says the overall accident rate for commercial air carriers and commuters declined. In all, 278 people were killed in 11 crashes in 1989 involving scheduled and non-scheduled air carriers, down slightly from the 285 in 1988, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday. The most deadly year of the decade was 1985 when 526 people were killed in seven fatal commercial aviation accidents. The least destructive year was 1980 when only one fatal accident took place, killing just one person. Also last year, 763 people died in accidents involving private or general aircraft, the safety board said, the lowest figure for that category since it began keeping statistics. There were 781 deaths involving general aviation accidents in 1988. The board said the fatal accident rate for general or private aviation continued ``an improving trend that lasted most of the decade.\'\' Despite the high number of airline accidents involving fatalities last year, the overall accident rate for commercial air carriers and commuters declined, the safety board said. There were 28 accidents involving U.S. scheduled and charter airlines last year, a decrease from the 32 accidents recorded in 1988. The 11 involving fatalities were the most since the 15 of 1968. The fatal accident rate was 0.144 for every 100,000 scheduled and charter departures, up from 0.026 in 1988. The major scheduled U.S. airlines had 24 accidents last year, down from 31 the previous year. Of those two dozen accidents, eight involved fatalities, the most since 1973. Accidents involving scheduled airlines took 131 lives last year, 111 of them when a United Airlines DC-10 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa on July 19. The safety board noted a passenger who died 31 days after the accident was not registered in its statistics. The scheduled-airline accident rate for each 100,000 departures was 0.328, down from 0.412 in 1988. The fatal accident rate rose from 0.027 to 0.109. Charter airlines experienced four accidents during the year, three of them involving fatalities. A total of 147 people died, all but three of them in the Feb. 8 crash of an Independent Air B-707. There were no fatal accidents involving chartered aircraft in 1988. Here are other aviation accident statistics for 1989: _Commuter flights: There were 18 accidents, one fewer then in 1988. Five fatal accidents, up from 2 in 1988, took 31 lives. That was 10 more than in 1988. The accident rate: 0.621 for each 100,000 departures compared to a rate of 0.654 in 1988. The fatal accident rate rose from 0.069 to 0.172. _Air taxis: Accidents rose from 98 in 1988 to 110. The number of fatal accidents declined from 27 to 23. But fatalities increased from 58 to 80. The accident rate rose from 3.45 to 3.83 for every 100,000 aircraft hours. But the fatal accident rate dropped from 0.95 to 0.80. _General aviation: The accident rate dropped for the seventh year in a row from 7.97 for each 100,000 aircraft hours in 1988 to 7.25. The last increase in the accident rate took place in 1982 when it was 10,06. The fatal accident rate declined to 1.40 for each 100,000 hours from 1.52 in 1988.\r\n'),(1267,2,'Georgette Mosbacher, socialite wife of the U.S. secretary of commerce and head of a cosmetics company she owns, was robbed of $30,000 in jewelry and cash outside her hotel room by a man with a submachine gun. Mrs. Mosbacher said she gave the robber her jewelry and handbag, then escaped when an elevator opened and she jumped in. ``I was screaming and yelling and leaning on the buzzer,\'\' Mrs. Mosbacher said after the Tuesday robbery. ``When I got to the lobby, I ran to the desk. I was hoping they could lock off the stairs and catch him.\'\' The robber fled. No arrests have been made, police said Wednesday. Mrs. Mosbacher said the well-dressed robber covered her with the small submachine gun and told her to open her door. She said she told him the key wouldn\'t work, but he got it open. ``I told him `I\'m not going there. I\'m not going to shout.\' ``I took off my earrings and said, `There\'s a bench over there and I\'m going to sit.\' I said to myself, `I\'m not going to live,\' but I thought I\'d have a better chance in the hallway,\'\' she recalled. The gunman\'s hands were occupied with jewelry and Mrs. Mosbacher\'s bag when the elevator door opened and Mrs. Mosbacher took her chance to get away. The robber got her wedding band, two other rings, a watch, $400 in cash and the earrings, she said. She said the valuables were worth $30,000. Mrs. Mosbacher was staying at the hotel while the couple\'s apartment is being renovated.\r\n'),(1268,2,'The investigation into the case of a black teen-ager who claims she was sexually assaulted by six white men has again reached an impasse with lawyers for the victim saying they will not cooperate with prosecutors. Representatives of the victim met with state Attorney General Robert Abrams, the special prosecutor investigating the case, for 12 hours Tuesday and Wednesday but failed to secure a pledge from Abrams that he would personally handle several key aspects of the case. Without that, ``we are unable to give him the cooperation that he is demanding of us,\'\' Alton Maddox Jr., an attorney representing Tawana Brawley and her family, said at a news conference after Wednesday\'s meeting. ``There is no way that we can agree that we have, instead of a special prosecutor, a case manager,\'\' he said. ``We are looking for a special prosecutor to personalize this case.\'\' Abrams said in a statement that he was committed to personal participation in, as well as overall responsibility, for the case. But he said it was too early to make the specific tactical decisions demanded by Maddox, attorney C. Vernon Mason, and activist Al Sharpton. Abrams said the investigation will continue without the cooperation of Miss Brawley or her attorneys. The two sides have no immediate plans to meet again, said Abrams\' spokesman, Timothy Gilles. Miss Brawley, 16, of Wappinger Falls, claims she was repeatedly raped and assaulted last November by six white men, one of whom flashed a police badge. She was found four days after her disappearance in a daze, wrapped in a plastic bag. Racial epithets had been scrawled on her body. This week\'s talks followed a meeting Feb. 11 between Miss Brawley\'s representatives and Gov. Mario Cuomo, which appeared to break a stalemate that had stymied the investigation. Previously the representatives had refused to allow Miss Brawley or her family to cooperate in the probe, saying they didn\'t think John Ryan, the aide Abrams had picked to head the investigation, had sufficient experience in civil rights matters. The attorneys later said they had been assured by Cuomo that Abrams would be ``personally involved\'\' in the investigation. In the meetings this week the representatives made Miss Brawley\'s cooperation conditional on Abrams personally conducting certain aspects of the case, including grand jury presentation and direct examination of several witnesses, Abrams said. ``I have indicated that I do not rule out performing any or even all of these roles myself,\'\' said Abrams. ``However, we are far from any trial here, we are far from even solving this case, and these are questions of trial tactics that I and my staff of prosecutors feel cannot in good conscience be made at this time.\'\'\r\n'),(1269,2,'A county supervisor who prides himself on doing right by his district and recently offered $1 to any constituent who spotted a pothole, has issued a $5 bounty on flooded intersections. ``Whether I pay off one or two, it\'ll be the best survey the Flood Control District ever had,\'\' said Kenneth Hahn, who is running for an unprecedented 10th term. ``It\'ll keep the Flood Control engineers out of their offices in downtown and down in the streets where they belong,\'\' he said. The offer, intended to pull the plug on storm-caused flooding, is good from Tuesday through March 10. Hahn paid $3 on his pothole offer _ $2 of it to a Los Angeles Herald Examiner reporter who cruised the byways of the 2nd District in a near-fruitless search for poor pavement. ``I pride myself on taking care of my district,\'\' Hahn said. ``If you do your homework and take care of the little things in your district, the big things will take care of themselves.\'\'\r\n'),(1270,2,'President Bush asked Congress today to cut taxes on capital gains and create a new tax break to encourage savings. Bush\'s 1991 budget calls for tax increases of $15.7 billion, although there is no proposed general increase in personal income taxes. The budget recommends $5.6 billion increases in user and service fees and $1.8 billion worth of targeted tax cuts, including a special credit of up to $1,000 a year for each child under the age of 4 in lower-income families. Although the most sensitive revenue proposal in the budget is the tax cut on capital gains, the one with the potential for affecting the greatest number of taxpayers is the call for a reward for increased savings. Under this proposal, a couple could avoid tax on the interest earned on special ``family savings accounts\'\' held for seven years or longer. While interest would be tax-exmept, deposits to such accounts would have no tax advantage. Most couples would be allowed to invest up to $5,000 a year in these accounts; a single person could invest $2,500. The tax break would be limited to couples with incomes below $120,000 and single people under $60,000. Bush also recommended that a first-time homebuyer be allowed to withdraw up to $10,000 penalty-free from an Individual Retirement Account in order to make a down payment on the home. The proposed capital-gains tax cut is more sweeping than the one Bush failed to win from Congress last year. Democratic leaders have fought any such reduction on grounds that 80 percent of the benefit would go to those with incomes over $100,000 a year. ``A reduction in the capital-gains rate would help United States businesses in the face of increasing global competition,\'\' Bush said in a written message to Congress. He also repeated the administration\'s insistence that cutting taxes on capital gains _ which are profits from the sale of stock, real estate and other investments _ would increase revenues. Under Bush\'s plan, capital gains from property owned more than one year would be taxed at lower rates than apply to wages and other income. When fully phased in, the provision would exempt from taxation 30 percent of profits from the sale of property owned at least three years; 20 percent of gains from property owned more than two but less than three years would be exempt; 10 percent of gain from assets held more than one year would be exempt. Thus, a person whose regular income is taxed at 28 percent would pay an effective rate of 19.6 percent on capital gains from long-held property. Other revenue proposals include: _Making permanent the 3-percent tax on local and long-distance telephone service, which is due to expire Dec. 31. _Raising the 8-percent tax on airline tickets to 10 percent. _Increasing more than three times the fee on waterway shippers, from 0.04 percent of value to 0.125 percent. _Requiring the 3.8 million state and local government workers who are not covered by a retirement plan to pay Social Security taxes. Also, state and local workers hired before April 1, 1986, would be required to pay the 1.45 percent Medicare tax; most state and local workers already pay. _Cutting oil industry taxes by creating four incentives for drilling in old fields. _Imposing fees for a variety of government services, including those provided by the Coast Guard and the Food and Drug Administration. _Requiring veterans, except those with low incomes, to pay part of their medical bills relating to non-service-connected ailments. Many veterans wold have to pay a 1.75 percent fee on new VA housing loan guarantees.\r\n'),(1271,2,'Kids are saying no to plastic across the Twin Cities after a cafeteria sit-in by grade schoolers prompted a school board decision to switch from disposable lunch trays and cups in favor of washable dishes. Mounds View school officials say they will spend at least $145,000 to equip eight grade schools with dishwashers and related equipment _ three schools next year and five the year after that. Students at Bel Air started the movement after hearing their teacher talk about the need to recycle and attending Earth Day festivities. They passed around a petition, which prompted school officials to call in a plastics representative to preach the benefits of plastic. That made them decide to stage a cafeteria sit-in. When they refused to return to class, they were suspended for a day and a half. While banished from class they cleaned up a neighborhood park.\r\n'),(1272,2,'A shark named ``megamouth\'\' with lips that glow in the dark washed ashore off the coast of Western Australia, and scientists said it was only the third time such a specimen has been found. ``In this day and age, it is quite a remarkable find,\'\' Dr. Gerald Allen of the Fish Department of the Western Australia Museum said Friday. ``Something like this doesn\'t happen every day.\'\' The fish, which measured 16 feet and looks like a cross between a whale and a shark, swam ashore on Wednesday near the resort town of Mandurah. Locals pushed it back to sea, but it beached itself again and died. Allen said only two other specimens had been found. He said a megamouth _ as researchers call the shark _ was first discovered in 1976 off Hawaii. A second specimen was caught in 1984 off the coast of Southern California. ``It\'s the first time a megamouth has been found in the Southern Hemisphere,\'\' Allen said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. Allen said the fish lives at depths of 660 feet to 3,300 feet and has bioluminescent lips that glow in the dark to attract jellyfish, plankton, shrimp and other food. ``We don\'t know very much about it other than that it swims at great depths apparently with its mouth open, filtering food,\'\' said Allen. He said the megamouth has a bulbous head with a mouth measuring 2{ feet across and tiny teeth. ``It\'s definitely a shark and it is not prehistoric,\'\' Allen said. Allen also noted that the megamouth, weighing about 1,500 pounds, feels very flabby. ``It\'s sort of like jelly,\'\' he said. ``That is because it doesn\'t need strong muscles or a hard skeleton for the sort of environment in which it lives.\'\' He said the museum planned to display the megamouth.\r\n'),(1273,2,'High school officials who protested greeting cards linking drinking and graduation are irate and embarrassed over a similar display in their school\'s yearbook. The full-page photo spread in Edison High School\'s yearbook, the Oracle, shows students with beer bottles and wine coolers. It appeared less than a week after Edison administrators joined in a protest of the Hallmark cards, which the company later said it would discontinue. ``I\'m very concerned and disappointed,\'\' Principal Jack Kennedy said Thursday. ``If there was a way I could recall it, I would. But I can\'t. ``It depicts everything we\'re against,\'\' he said. Edison officials became involved in the protest after a parent discovered two cards linking drinking to graduation fun. The parent, who is on a committee planning a graduation party next week at Edison, took the cards to Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Kennedy is retiring July 1 and will be replaced by Brian Garland, who also joined members of MADD in the June 3 protest outside Hallmark\'s regional sales office in Newport Beach. Garland said Thursday that the photo page in the yearbook showed ``poor judgment\'\' and gives the school a bad image. ``It won\'t happen again,\'\' Garland said, ``I won\'t tolerate it. You can bet the farm.\'\' Students paid for the page, near the back of the annual, school officials said. Jim Wheeler, a 19-year yearbook adviser, said he was unsure ``where to draw the line\'\' but added the yearbook staff had voted to refrain from such features next year.\r\n'),(1274,2,'OPEC\'s price monitoring committee ended a two-day emergency session Monday by calling for prompt action to reverse the sharp decline in world oil prices but stopped short of calling for a special meeting of the full 13-member cartel. In a communique released at the conclusion of the meeting, the oil ministers also said it was essential that a joint meeting of the price committee and the Long-Term Strategy Committee be held to review existing OPEC strategies and objectives. ``No lasting stability in the world oil market can be achieved without concrete cooperation by the non-OPEC oil producing countries and their contribution in regulating world supplies of oil in line with demand,\'\' the price committee said. OPEC Secretary General Subroto of Indonesia, speaking to reporters at a news conference following the meeting, underscored the committee\'s statement saying the cause of the recent fall in oil prices was ``mainly due to a significant overproduction of some OPEC countries as well as non-OPEC oil producers.\'\' Subroto said the ministers would decide after the joint meeting whether a special session of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries should be called before its regularly scheduled meeting Nov. 21 in Vienna. Oil futures prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange, which had risen earlier in the day, began falling immediately after Subroto\'s statements then recovered slightly, analysts said. One broker said Subroto\'s comments were interpreted as indicating OPEC was unwilling to take immediate action to restrain oil output and boost sagging oil prices. The meeting of the price committee was called in response to the recent slump in world oil prices, which earlier this month hit their lowest level since the summer of 1986 when they fell below $10 a barrel. According to many analysts, sagging prices represent the failure of nearly all OPEC members to respect production quotas. The secretary general did not give specific dates for the joint meeting except to say it would probably be held in October. Subroto said Iran and Iraq are to speak directly with each other at the Long-Term Strategy Committee for the first time in years within OPEC. He downplayed the significance of such a meeting, however, saying it was normal that their respective oil ministers should speak since their foreign ministers began meeting last month in peace talks. The Long-Term Strategy Committee is comprised of OPEC\'s founding members, including: Iran, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, Algeria, Venezuela and Kuwait. Subroto said Iran and Iraq have both confirmed their attendance at the joint session. Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Algeria also are members of the price committee, along with Nigeria and Indonesia. Since the last price committee meeting Aug. 3 in Lausanne, Switzerland, a cease-fire between the two countries in their eight-year Gulf War has begun to hold. The Price Evolution Committee, as the price committee is officially named, is an influential panel that studies price developments and compliance with OPEC policies, namely production quotas, by OPEC members, although it has no enforcement powers. The committee may, however, call for special meetings of all 13 OPEC members. The committee said it also examined during the emergency session in the Spanish capital a report prepared by the Vienna-based OPEC Secretariat on current market conditions as well as a report presented by Subroto on the outcome of his recent visits to various OPEC and non-OPEC oil producing countries. The Paris-based International Energy Energy Agency reported OPEC production at 19 million barrels a day in August and OPEC President Rilwanu Lukman has put OPEC production at closer to 20 million barrels per day. Last June, OPEC set a 15.06 million barrel a day ceiling to apply to all OPEC nations except Iraq, which has refused to go along with OPEC quotas, saying it needs to produce more oil to rebuild its war-torn economy following eight years of fighting with Iran. On Monday, North Sea Brent crude for delivery in October was quoted at $13.25, up slightly from Friday.\r\n'),(1275,2,'Under pressure from builders and Congress, federal regulators are moving to ease lending restrictions imposed on savings and loans under last year\'s bailout law. The Office of Thrift Supervision is proposing to temporarily quadruple to 60 percent the percentage of capital that a qualified thrift institution may lend to one borrower, an agency official said Tuesday. The office was under intense pressure from lawmakers who were inundated with complaints from builders that the rule was forcing them to curtail projects, putting their employees out of work. Last year\'s S&L legislation had sharply reduced the lending limit, aiming to sever the cozy relationship between highflying S&Ls and some developers. In the past, loan limits were so high that the default of a single loan could bankrupt a thrift. However, builders complained that the shift was too abrupt and left many reputable builders unable to arrange alternative financing for sound projects. Last month, the National Association of Homebuilders cited the regulation as one element in a credit crunch they predicted would cut housing construction nationally by 100,000 units to 1.28 million this year. Under a draft regulation submitted by the thrift agency to the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget, the strongest S&Ls would be allowed to lend up to 60 percent of their capital to a single U.S. developer for residential construction. That is four times the 15 percent limit imposed by S&L bailout legislation enacted last August. The limit would drop to 30 percent before returning to the 15 percent mark at the end of 1991, said the thrift office official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Before passage of the S&L bailout law, thrifts had been allowed to lend 100 percent of their capital to one borrower. The new transition rule would not apply to commercial projects, and only S&Ls currently meeting strict capital standards effective in 1995 would be eligible. The thrift office official said 1,185 of the nation\'s 2,502 solvent S&Ls meet the test. ``This will give us some breathing room,\'\' said economist David Seiders of the homebuilders group. ``We think it will provide a lot of help.\'\' The association had been pushing for a somewhat longer transition period and had wanted regulators to make a larger group of thrifts eligible for the relaxation. But, Seiders said, ``This is a step in the right direction.\'\' The homebuilders had mounted a campaign in Congress, where legislators in both chambers were preparing amendments to the S&L law. A transition rule proposed by Rep. Peter Hoagland, D-Neb., had attracted more than 60 cosponsors. However, Seiders said the builders all along had been looking for relief from regulators rather than having to wait months for Congress to change the law. Details of the loan-to-one-borrower proposal were first reported in Tuesday editions of American Banker, a trade newspaper. The thrift office hopes to formally announce the policy by the end of the month, the agency official said. Regulators, in testimony to a House Banking subcommittee in February, indicated that last year\'s law left them with no discretion to issue a transition rule. However, Treasury Undersecretary Robert Glauber told the Senate Banking Committee in May that thrift office lawyers were working to establish their authority to interpret the law. Seiders praised Timothy Ryan, the new director of the thrift office, for his willingness to review the matter after taking office two months ago. ``We think it\'s a good sign in terms of (prospects for) working with Ryan\'\' and the agency, the homebuilders official said.\r\n'),(1276,2,'Police said they raided a Mafia summit Saturday and arrested five people meeting to draw up new territories for Naples\' crime families. The five were charged with criminal association of a Mafia type and with illegal possession of firearms. They are reputed leaders of the Camorra, the Neapolitan version of the Mafia. Authorities said the five met at the apartment of the boss of one Camorra gang and that the apartment had been under surveillance for months. The five were identified as Antonio Egizio, 35; his brother Umberto Egizio, 24; Vincenzo Romano, 28; Vincenzo de Michele, 36; and Salvatore Manna, 44. Police said Antonio Egizio recently sent a letter to President Francesco Cossiga complaining that he was a good person who was continously being persecuted, stopped and followed by the police.\r\n'),(1277,2,'Scientists today began innoculating an acre of corn stalks in the first field test of a genetically engineered microbe designed to combat the European corn borer, one of agriculture\'s most destructive pests. Although researchers have conducted other experiments of genetically altered materials in the environment, the tests of Cxc-Bt at the federal experimental station here are the first approved of a genetically altered ``plant vaccine,\'\' scientists and federal officials said. Proponents of the Crop Genetics International project call the testing a step toward an era of chemical-free pest control. The company\'s chief scientist, Peter Carlson, said today he hoped Cxc-Bt will have the effect of making the corn borer sick. But he said the main purpose of the test is to determine whether the pesticide will spread from plant to plant, an undesireable effect. The microbe works by attacking the alkaline stomach of corn borers, giving them ulcers. It doesn\'t affect humans because people\'s stomachs are acid and are unaffected by the Bt protein, according to researchers. In previous experiments in petrie dishes and in a greenhouse, the microbe killed the borers in the petrie dishes and sickened them when tested in the greenhouse. The pest costs American farmers $400 million annually. Critics worry that Cxc-Bt experiment could set a precedent and are concerned that genetically engineered materials could spread uncontrollably once released into the environment. Environmental groups, including the National Audubon Society and the Environmental Defense Fund, did not oppose the limited field tests begun today. Environmental experts said if their questions about spreading are answered with more tests, they may support the final product. The crucial question for environmental groups is whether there will be adequate testing and regulation because Cxc-Bt is just the beginning of a rush of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of similiar products, said Maureen Hinkle, the Audubon Society\'s director of agriculture policy. Only one other genetic crop protector, a microbe altered to fight frost, has been approved for field testing by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Washington-based Foundation on Economic Trends, said the pesticide hasn\'t been shown to work in greenhouse tests. Rifkin said today his organization did not oppose today\'s test because ``this product doesn\'t work. It does not kill corn borers. (The company\'s) evaluation data supplied to the EPA shows the product does not kill the insects. It poses no immediate threat because it doesn\'t work.\'\'\r\n'),(1278,2,'A West Virginia University professor who worked as a consultant for Caterpillar Co. had his students spy on competitors of two Caterpillar dealerships, but a school official says there\'s no evidence the assignment was made to help the professor\'s work. ``I think inappropriate things were asked of them. I think they were in an uncomfortable situation and responded in an unfortunate (manner),\'\' Provost Frank Franz said Tuesday. Two groups of graduate students in Marketing 321 polled competitors of H.O. Penn Machinery Co. in Armonk, N.Y., and Yancey Bros. in Atlanta, both Caterpillar dealers, according to Tuesday\'s Wall Street Journal. The students obtained inventory and sales volume reports and even new product information from competitors and gave the data to the Caterpillar dealerships, according to the report. The aim of the assignment, according to instructor Terry Wilson, was to give students a firsthand taste of the ethical issues involved in industrial espionage. ``They\'ll be facing these issues every day of their career. They have to learn to deal with them. I tell them to think through the tradeoffs,\'\' Wilson told the Journal. However, he said his students no longer will be assigned similar projects. Franz said there was no evidence the students\' surveys were conducted to help Wilson\'s consulting work. ``It\'s not clear from the article that there\'s any action that professor Wilson took that was inappropriate,\'\' he said. Wilson won\'t be disciplined, said Cyril Logar, dean of the College of Business and Economics, because he taught students about the ethical considerations involved in the project, including confidentiality, before the students began their work, although ``they still broke the rules, so to speak.\'\' ``I thought I was doing them a favor,\'\' said H.O. Penn Machinery marketing manager Milton Long, who helped direct students about what to ask whom. The students identified themselves only as university students during the surveys, and promised some dealerships that their identities would remain confidential, the Journal said. However, ``there was pressure\'\' at H.O. Penn for students to name the competing dealerships and that information was provided, one of the students, Mark Wheatley, told the Wall Street Journal. ``It makes me shudder to think about it,\'\' he said. Long denied obtaining confidential information from the students. Wilson said he told his students to reveal who the information was being gathered for _ but only if those being surveyed asked. And he said students should have known on their own not to divulge confidential information. One of the businessmen surveyed said business owners let their guard down when dealing with college students, allowing them to get information not ordinarily available. ``That\'s not ethical in my mind,\'\' said Alan Stith at the Atlanta-based Stith Equipment Co.\r\n'),(1279,2,'The Soviet military commandant expressed hope Thursday that by mid-February troops could begin returning home and authorities could lift a curfew imposed after violent ethnic clashes in Azerbaijan. Representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan prepared to open peace talks Friday across the Soviet Union in Riga, capital of the Baltic republic of Latvia. A spokesman for the Azerbaijani People\'s Front accused President Mikhail S. Gorbachev of caving in to Communist hard-liners by sending troops to occupy Baku, and added: ``Gorbachev\'s hands are now bloody.\'\' Lt. Gen. Vladimir S. Dubinyak told the first foreign journalists permitted to visit Baku since the military seized control of the city Jan. 20 there are ``many positively inclined forces trying to noralize the situation and end the curfew.\'\' He said the 11 p.m.-5 a.m. curfew might be lifted within two weeks. He said tensions would have to ease further, including an end to leaflets appealing to Baku workers to strike to protest the military presence. At night, during the curfew, military trucks and armored personnel carriers stand at most intersections between Baku airport and the center of the city. Soldiers guarding the intersections wear helmets and carry automatic weapons. Red flowers mark where Azerbaijanis died fighting the military intervention. On Jan. 13, Azerbaijanis attacked ethnic Armenians and drove them from their homes in Baku, an oil center and the capital of the republic of Azerbaijan in the southern Soviet Union. Soviet troops stormed Baku a week later. The official Soviet news agency Tass reported the death toll in Baku alone since the troops moved in at 139. That includes 106 civilians, 28 soldiers and five policemen. As many as 498 people were wounded, Tass said. Iran on Thursday offered to send doctors, nurses and medicine to neighboring Soviet Azerbaijan, whose residents are primarily Shiite Moslem, like most Iranians. The offer was reported by Tehran television, monitored in Cyprus. Iran has condemned the use of force in Azerbaijan. Dubinyak said regular army soldiers, making up 5,000 of the 17,000 troops now committed to Baku, could be sent home, military equipment could be removed from the streets, and the remaining Interior Ministry soldiers could patrol the streets without weapons. Dubinyak said he would welcome talks with the Azerbaijan People\'s Front, a group that Defense Minister Dmitri T. Yazov has said the military is trying to crush as a nationalist movement. Dubinyak said the people\'s front has not proposed talks, but a spokesman for the group interrupted to say such discussions could begin any time. The People\'s Front spokesman, Nadchov Nadzhavov, editor of the group\'s banned newspaper, charged that soldiers were sent into Baku in part to prevent the front from making a strong showing in local elections. The date for the elections is to be set this month, and they must take place within three months. ``I can make the prognosis that they won\'t leave before the elections,\'\' Nadzhavov told reporters. He also criticized Gorbachev\'s handling of the crisis in Azerbaijan, saying the Kremlin leader had given in to reformers by not cracking down on an independence movement in Lithuania and then had given in to Communist hard-liners by sending troops into Azerbaijan. ``Gorbachev\'s hands are now bloody,\'\' he said. Lt. Gen. Mikhail P. Kolesnikov, a representative of the Soviet army serving under the commandant, told reporters that the military had been affected by the ``Tblisi syndrome.\'\' He said criticism that followed the crushing of a nationalist demonstration in the Georgian capital on April 9, 1989, had demoralized the military and hindered decision making. ``We saw outrages,\'\' he said. ``We saw instances of blood-letting, but we couldn\'t do anything.\'\' Azerbaijani representatives arrived in Riga for peace talks with a three-man delegation of the Armenian All-National Movement. ``Maybe the first steps toward dialogue with the Armenians will take place. We are counting on that,\'\' the chief Azerbaijani delegate, Khikmet Khazhizade of his republic\'s People\'s Front group, told The Associated Press. The talks are sponsored by the Baltic Council, a grouping of the three people\'s front organizations in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Organizers said they hoped the talks could start Friday morning. The Baltic activists cautioned against expecting quick results. ``Such talks could help, but we need two or three months, as the problems are very deep,\'\' said Edvin Inken, a Latvian People\'s Front leader who recently visited Baku.\r\n'),(1280,2,'Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis begins his race against Republican George Bush with a 12-point advantage, according to an ABC News poll. The network reported Thursday that Dukakis leaped to a 53-41 percent lead in a survey of 450 registered voters Wednesday, up from his 45-46 virtual dead heat with Bush in ABC\'s poll Sunday. The movement was 13 points _ from 1 point down to 12 up. The jump was expected; polls in other elections have found that nominees often gain support immediately after their party\'s convention. Such bumps frequently settle back down as voters focus on the substance of the race. The survey reflected the success of Dukakis\' peacemaking with Jesse Jackson, his opponent for the nomination. Sixty-eight percent said Dukakis was treating Jackson fairly, up from 52 percent in a poll early this month. Similarly, 70 percent said Jackson was treating Dukakis fairly, and the share of respondents with an unfavorable view of Jackson fell 11 points from Sunday, to 31 percent. Those with a favorable view rose 9 points to 52. The national survey found a rise in unfavorable views of Bush, who was roundly criticized by convention speakers this week. His favorable rating fell from 49 percent to 41 percent, while those viewing him unfavorably rose from 36 percent Sunday to 44 percent Wednesday. The poll, completed the day before Dukakis appeared at the convention, found little change in his favorable-unfavorable rating, 55-21. Dukakis\' 12-point lead against Bush did not mark his greatest numerical advantage in an ABC poll; the Massachusetts governor led by 53-40 in late May. The margin of error for the new poll was 5 points. Such single-day surveys, particularly when conducted during or just after a highly publicized event, tend to measure visceral reactions rther than considered opinion, so the views they gauge can change rapidly. Dukakis continued to do better with women voters than with men, and the poll Wednesday found that he had gained more ground among women _ leading Bush by 25 points in the new poll, up from an 8-point lead Sunday. Dukakis scored a tie with Bush among men, after a 12-point Bush lead Sunday. Dukakis improved with independents, scoring 48-42 against Bush after a 52-35 lead for Bush among independents Sunday. And 59 percent of Democrats who had bolted the party to vote for President Reagan favored Dukakis now. In another measure of the convention\'s impact, 52 percent said the Democrats could be trusted to do a better job with the nation\'s problems, up 9 points from Sunday. And 40 percent said they generally approved of the proceedings in Atlanta, while just 13 percent disapproved. Nearly half said they had not been paying enough attention to say.\r\n'),(1281,2,'President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro has announced plans to reduce the Nicaraguan army, the largest force in Central America, by half and retire some senior officers. Mrs. Chamorro, who took over after the leftist Sandinistas were defeated in free elections, said on Friday that the cutbacks would take effect by Aug. 3. Her spokesman, Antonio Lacayo, said the cuts would come mainly from sending draftees home and reducing the ranks of the militia. He said the reductions would also affect active-duty troops and reserve forces. Mrs. Chamorro did not say whether the Sandinista army chief, Gen. Humberto Ortega, would be among those senior officers who retire under the reforms. She had said earlier that Ortega, brother of former Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, would hold the post only temporarily. Ortega told reporters later that the army itself will decide which officers stay and which leave. Mrs. Chamorro also said she was ordering the army and the Interior Ministry to disarm civilians. ``It is my purpose that by Christmas there are no weapons in the hands of anyone unless they are part of the nation\'s army,\'\' Mrs. Chamorro said. She said draftees would be home by Dec. 7. The president\'s announcement came in a speech to the Cabinet, representatives of the United Nations and the Organization of American States, the diplomatic corps and the army general staff. During the 10 years of Sandinista rule, Nicaragua never made public the size of the army, but estimates put its strength at near 55,000, making it the largest in Central America. Gen. Ortega said on Friday that the army numbered 96,000, but it was not clear how many of those were active-duty troops and how many were reservists. Lacayo said the army numbered 80,000, including reserves, militia and draftees, when Mrs. Chamorro took office in April. The president said the cutbacks would bring the army strength to ``less than 41,000 men and women,\'\' adding: ``This means half of the members that it had on April 25, the day I assumed the presidency of the republic.\'\' Mrs. Chamorro also announced that 14,200 of the U.S.-backed Contra rebels have demobilized so far. The Contras waged a nearly decade-long insurgency against the Sandinistas. ``With all security we can say that today the war has been left behind,\'\' Mrs. Chamorro said. About 1,000 Contras have yet to demobilize but are expected to do so, she said. The measures were announced before Mrs. Chamorro left for a regional weekend summit in Guatemala, also to be attended by Secretary of State James A. Baker III. It will be Mrs. Chamorro\'s first summit as president. Mrs. Chamorro later arrived in Guatemala. The summit, which is taking place in the town of Antigua, 30 miles west of Guatemala City, is expected to concentrate on efforts to reconstruct the economies of Nicaragua and other countries in the region. She wanted to present the army reduction plan and the Contra demobilization as evidence that her 7-week-old, U.S. backed government is fulfilling regional peace pacts entered into by her predecessor. Mrs. Chamorro had ordered Gen. Ortega to present her with a troop-reduction plan, but she did not say whether the plan she announced was his.\r\n'),(1282,2,'Mikhail S. Gorbachev said a U.S.-Soviet treaty reducing long-range nuclear weapons could be signed by January but that he will not set aside disputes over the ``Star Wars\'\' program to reach such an accord. The Soviet leader also said his policy of ``glasnost,\'\' or openness, includes freedom of speech, but he condemned a leading dissident as a ``parasite\'\' and accused him of ``sponging on the democratic process.\'\' Gorbachev\'s comments came in a pre-summit interview with two American news organizations. The Soviet news agency Tass on Sunday ran a partial transcript of the interview with The Washington Post and Newsweek. Radio Moscow\'s English-language foreign service also carried a report about it as its lead item on Sunday. Soviet television\'s widely watched evening news program ``Vremya\'\' mentioned as its lead item that the interview had been published in Washington and would appear in today\'s Soviet newspapers. The 90-minute discussion, in which Gorbachev also proposed a joint U.S.-Soviet trip to Mars, covered a wide range of foreign and domestic issues. The interview, conducted in the Kremlin on Wednesday, produced a startling Biblical reference by the head of the officially atheistic state. When asked about how far glasnost should go and about criticism of dictator Josef V. Stalin, the 57-year-old Communist Party leader said: ``Jesus Christ alone knew answers to all questions and knew how to feed 20,000 Jews with five loaves of bread. We don\'t possess that skill, we have no ready prescription to solve all our problems quickly.\'\' The interview was conducted 11 days before President Reagan\'s arrival in Moscow for a five-day summit with Gorbachev. It will be their fourth meeting. Although the Tass transcript included much of the interview, it deleted a reference to Yegor Ligachev, the Kremlin\'s No. 2 man. It also left out a reference to Gorbachev\'s wife, Raisa. Ligachev, considered more conservative than the Soviet leader, reportedly wants to slow Gorbachev\'s policy of ``perestroika,\'\' or restructuring, of the Soviet economy and society. Gorbachev acknowledged a lively debate between the two but said ``to present these discussions _ which are a normal part of the democratic process _ as division within the leadership would be a great mistake itself.\'\' Gorbachev expressed optimism that a superpower agreement to cut strategic, or long-range, nuclear weapons will be completed by the time Reagan leaves office in January. ``We want to have that signed,\'\' he said. If the agreement ``comes to be drafted under the present U.S. administration, I see no reason why President Reagan and I should not sign it. I would certainly welcome that,\'\' Gorbachev added. However, he cautioned that he has no plans to set aside disputes to hasten an agreement. ``If we sign with one hand a treaty reducing strategic offensive forces in one area and at the same time launch an arms race in space or at sea, what would be the point? That would be senseless,\'\' he said. He reiterated his opposition to Reagan\'s ``Star Wars\'\' missile defense program, known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, saying the leader who promotes an escalation of the arms race in space ``is committing a crime against the people _ his own people, and others.\'\' U.S. and Soviet officials have said they don\'t believe the long-range nuclear weapons treaty will be completed by the end of Reagan\'s term. Another treaty to ban short- and medium-range nuclear weapons is being debated by the U.S. Senate. Gorbachev said he will ask Reagan at the summit to approve a joint Soviet-U.S. unmanned flight to Mars. ``Why shouldn\'t we work together? We have great experience, you have great experience _ let us cooperate to master the cosmos, to fulfill big programs,\'\' he said. On domestic affairs, Gorbachev was asked whether glasnost includes freedom of speech. ``While freedom of speech is indispensable for glasnost, we see glasnost as a broader phenomenon,\'\' he said. Glasnost is ``the right of every citizen to openly say what he or she thinks about all social and political questions,\'\' he added. Gorbachev was asked later whether freedom of speech applies to dissidents such as Moscow journalist Sergei Grigoryants, who was jailed for a week earlier this month. Gorbachev said Soviets think of Grigoryants ``as some kind of alien phenomenon in our society sponging on the democratic process.\'\' Gorbachev went on to call Grigoryants a ``parasite.\'\' It was a rare reference by a Soviet leader to a dissident. Grigoryants, editor of the dissident magazine Glasnost, said the computer and printer used to produce the journal were confiscated when he was arrested. In a telephone interview on Sunday, he called Gorbachev\'s comments about him ``very unpleasant.\'\'\r\n'),(1283,2,'Amtrak will eliminate smoking next month on some trains and in some stations under new policies that will more strongly segregate nonsmokers and those who want to light up. No-reservation trains of three or fewer cars will be designated no-smoking, Amtrak spokeswoman Sue Martin said Wednesday. ``This will affect a number of trains in the East, some in the Midwest and one in the Northwest,\'\' she said. ``Seventeen routes will have some trains that at least on some days have no smoking at all.\'\' Two lawmakers who led the successful fight to ban smoking on most domestic flights said Wednesday that the nation\'s passenger railroad would adopt the tougher smoking policies April 1. They jumped the gun on Amtrak\'s own announcement of the new policy, which had been scheduled for today. ``These new rules are another victory for health and common sense,\'\' said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on transportation. ``It\'s further acknowledgement that nonsmokers should not be forced to breathe other people\'s smoke.\'\' Lautenberg and Rep. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., a member of the House transportation appropriations panel, had said after the airline smoking ban took effect Feb. 25 that they would turn their attention to railroads. ``It is my hope that eventually nonsmokers will be able to ride smoke-free on all forms of public transportation,\'\' Durbin said. Although passengers will be permitted to smoke in sleeping compartments and lounges on longer trains, smoking will be eliminated in: _First-class cars on all trains in the Northeast Corridor that don\'t require reservations. Reserved-seat Metroliners will carry smoking cars and will set aside smoking areas in first-class cars. _All areas except a portion of the lounge on other trains requiring reservations. _Coach cars of reserved-seat, double-deck Superliners operating west of Chicago. Currently, Amtrak allows smoking in the last four rows of Superliner coaches. The new policy will limit Superliner smoking to the lower level of the lounge car, Ms. Martin said. _Stations smaller than 1,100 square feet. _At least three-quarters of the area of larger stations. Amtrak\'s ultimate goal is to separate the 25 percent of its passengers who smoke from the 75 percent who do not, Ms. Martin said. Toward that end, Amtrak will begin locating its smoking cars at the front or rear of unreserved trains so nonsmokers need not walk through smoking areas to reach their seats. The Amtrak policy changes drew fire from the Tobacco Institute, the lobby for cigarette manufacturers. ``Once again we\'re seeing unnecessary regulation above and beyond what is necessary,\'\' said institute spokesman Thomas Lauria. ``Train travelers have accommodated each other, smokers and non-smokers alike, ever since we\'ve had trains,\'\' Lauria said. ``Obviously this is an attempt to put smokers in the back of the bus once again. On shorter trains, it seems mean-spirited to ban smoking altogether.\'\' Lauria said he anticipated resistance from smokers to Amtrak\'s intended smoking restrictions in stations. According to Ms. Martin, the changes are part of the national passenger railroad\'s fine-tuning of its smoking policy as the number of smokers drops. ``We feel it is very important for our marketing effort to continue to permit smoking on longer trips,\'\' Ms. Martin said. ``It simply doesn\'t make good business sense to eliminate smoking altogether.\'\'\r\n'),(1284,2,'Lawmakers are optimistic that North Korea\'s decision to return the remains of five U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean war will lead to better relations between the United States and the communist nation. ``This is a humanitarian gesture at this time, and we hope we can get into other areas at a later date,\'\' Rep. G.V. ``Sonny\'\' Montgomery, D-Miss., said Monday of the first North Korean repatriation since 1954. Montgomery, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, will head a six-member congressional delegation that travels to the border village of Panmunjom on May 28 to receive the five sets of remains. The delegation will then give the remains to the U.S. military, which will take them to a laboratory in Honolulu for identification. Montgomery said North Korean authorities told them that two sets of remains include military dog tags that should enable authorities to identify them quickly. The Defense Department estimates that about 8,200 U.S. servicemen were unaccounted for at the end of the war, with 345 of those listed as possible prisoners of war. ``I am very hopeful that this will be the first brick, if you will, in improving the relationship which will mean literally hundreds of remains,\'\' said Rep. Frank McCloskey, D-Ind., a delegation member, said at a news conference with Montgomery. U.S. officials have been working on obtaining U.S. remains from the 1950-53 Korean war since November 1989, Montgomery said. He credited the work of China in assisting the U.S. effort and McCloskey acknowledged the help of the Soviet Union. The United States and North Korea have no formal diplomatic relations, and the U.S. military has 43,000 troops in rival South Korea to deter an attack from the North. ``I\'m looking forward to ending this chapter on the Korean war and getting on with a better relationship,\'\' McCloskey said. In addition to Montgomery and McCloskey, the delegation will include Reps. James H. Bilbray, D-Nev.; Bob Stump, R-Ariz.; Bob Traxler, D-Mich.; and Curt Weldon, R-Pa.\r\n'),(1285,2,'A day in February when millions of Britons wore red clown noses reaped $25 million for British and African charities, organizers said. ``Comic Relief Day\'\' was held for the first time on Feb. 5, and accompanied by a seven-hour ``laughathon\'\' on television, which raised the bulk of donations through telephone pledges. Two million donors also paid nearly $1 each for a red nose. Bankers in pin stripes, school children, secretaries and others wearing the bulbous badge were a common sight. Even Prince Andrew, second son of Queen Elizabeth II, posed for photographers in a red nose. Organizers on Monday said the funds would be used to help famine victims in Africa and poor youths in Britain.\r\n'),(1286,2,'The National Assembly on Saturday pardoned both the Contra rebels and Sandinista government workers accused of wrongdoing in a sweeping amnesty law of ``national reconciliation.\'\' ``We must avoid political vengeance and block any moves by hotheads in the National Opposition Union,\'\' said Carlos Nunez, president of the legislature. He was apparently referring to possible reprisals against Sandinista government workers after the opposition takes over April 25. The amnesty was proposed by leftist President Daniel Ortega after he lost the Feb. 25 presidential elections to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who headed the National Opposition Union\'s ticket. The leftist Sandinistas control the National Assembly, and lawmakers passed the law on a vote of 72 in favor with six abstentions. Only 78 of the 96 members were present. The law absolves Nicaraguans, ``residents or not in the country, who commit crimes against public order and against internal security of the state.\'\' The U.S.-backed Contras, who have fought to overthrow the Sandinistas, have resisted calls from the outgoing and incoming governments to lay down their weapons. About 11,000 Contras are based in border camps in Honduras. The ``Law of General Amnesty and Reconciliation\'\' was introduced Thursday, replacing an earlier version that prompted significant opposition. The wording of the new version was changed to make the amnesty more sweeping. The amnesty covers public employees who ``presumably committed crimes of failing in their duties, fraud or theft and have not been prosecuted\'\' between July 1979, when the Sandinistas came to power, and the day the law takes effect. Legislators said it will take effect between March 20-23 when it is published in the official government gazette. Edwin Illescas of the Democratic Conservative Party said he supported the law because he recognized that by holding elections, the Sandinistas were working for peace. He said similar laws had been passed in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile and hastened the return of democracy. The law says it is designed ``to contribute to the national reconciliation of all the sectors of society with the goal of peace and tranquillity to Nicaraguan families.\'\' ``The union of Nicaraguan families needs the pardon and to forget those deeds that brought anxiety and restlessness in the nation.\'\' ``The law is not to protect criminals\'\' but benefits ``people who have worked more than 10 years protecting the revolution,\'\' Nunez said. The Sandinistas hold 61 seats in the present legislature to 35 for the opposition. The 14-party National Opposition Union will hold a majority in the new legislature, with the Sandinistas remaining the largest single party.\r\n'),(1287,2,'New disclosures of harmful radiation releases at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state could help win federal compensation for those who became ill following the emissions in the 1940s, some lawmakers say. ``The federal government owes something if folks have been harmed by these early releases of radiation,\'\' said Rep. Sid Morrison, a Republican whose district houses the 560-square-mile Hanford reservation near Richland, Wash. An independent panel of scientists released preliminary data Thursday that showed some residents in the early years of atomic bomb building in the 1940s could have been exposed to large doses of radioactive iodine. For a few infants, the doses were as high as 2,900 rad over three years. One rad is the amount of radiation a body organ would absorb from about a dozen chest X-rays. Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, said the findings underscore the need for the Energy Department to make public its secret records of health risks at all DOE sites nationwide. He said he was ``surprised and disturbed\'\' by the results of the dose reconstruction study at Hanford. ``The study suggests that the Hanford residents may have been exposed to more radioactive iodine than from any industrial nuclear facility in the world,\'\' he said. Sen. Brock Adams, D-Wash., said the Energy Department should launch a major campaign to help locate people who may have been exposed to the radiation. ``The number of curries released over all these years are comparable to the levels released in Chernobyl (in the Soviet Union) ... The missing link is where are the people who were exposed?\'\' Adams said. ``If we find these people around the country and if there has been injury then the government should compensate them for it,\'\' Adams said. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said if it can be proven that people were injured as a result of the emissions it ``would be only fair\'\' to compensate them. Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., said the high doses of radiation exposure during the 1940s suggests a study into thyroid disease should begin immediately. However, he added, ``Radioactive materials have leaked from existing storage tanks at Hanford as recently as last month... I fear the public is left with the impression that the only threat at Hanford existed 30 years ago.\'\' Some members of Congress are pushing to remove the Energy Department\'s oversight authority of health and environmental safety at nuclear weapons plants. Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., have proposed bills to establish independent oversight of DOE\'s weapons facilities through the Department of Health and Human Services. ``I think that because the federal government has misled the people of the Pacific Northwest, that unless there are truly independent decisions being made on health and safety, the citizens of the Northwest are going to doubt the department\'s credibility,\'\' Wyden said. Energy Secretary James Watkins said his department is preparing to enter an inter-agency agreement that would transfer some radiation research activities from DOE to HHS.\r\n'),(1288,2,'The Reagan administration said it will make ``no deals\'\' with Iran after Tehran offered to use its influence to free American hostages in Lebanon if the United States releases Iranian assets frozen in this country. ``I am not willing to make anything that sounds like a deal,\'\' White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Tuesday, the same day the proposal was aired by Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, in a television interview. ``We have heard this kind of thing before, but as far as we are concerned you just can\'t link the two,\'\' Fitzwater said. ``No deals.\'\' Fitzwater said it is ``interesting that there should be this series of statements,\'\' but ``the clearest signal they could send is to release the hostages.\'\' In New York, Vernon Walters, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said: ``We have said that we will not make deals on this particular issue. We are very interested in getting them (the hostages) out. And if they want to talk, we will be prepared to talk, but that is a speculative question.\'\' Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., told reporters Tuesday, ``I don\'t think we can ignore anything that comes our way. But I think we should reject anything that smacks of ransom or blackmail and this sounds like both.\'\' State Department officials said Iranian officials had made proposals similar to Rafsanjani\'s previously and the Reagan administration had rejected them. The officials said they assume Rafsanjani was referring to military equipment which had been purchased by the Iranian government during the reign of the Shah of Iran but had not been delivered. President Carter withheld all such deliveries after the hostage crisis began. Carter also refused to return to Iran military equipment which Iranian authorities had sent back to the United States for repair. The officials said they had no dollar figure on the military equipment on which Iran has a claim.\r\n'),(1289,2,'Fund raising for a proposed $4 million memorial to black Revolutionary War patriots will begin soon since President Reagan has approved placing the monument in the city\'s main tourist district. Project coordinator Maurice A. Barboza said the memorial would be the first prominently displayed monument in Washington dedicated to blacks. Barboza said Monday that the president signed legislation Friday permitting the proposed memorial to the 5,000 black veterans to be placed in Area I, which includes the Mall stretching from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, the grassy Ellipse behind the White House, Lafayette Park and West Potomac Park. The next step will be to study specific site plans being developed by three architectural firms and submitting the best one to the National Capital Memorial Commission, Barboza said. The commission and other agencies must recommend a site before it goes to the Secretary of Interior for final approval. Barboza, a Virginia lawyer who has devoted himself full-time to the memorial project, said he hoped to have the Interior Department approval and start work on a design competition in six months. Construction of the memorial must begin by the end of 1991 under an authorizing measure signed into law in late 1986. Barboza said July 4, 1991, is the target date for construction to begin. Barboza predicted the memorial would cost about $4 million and said he hoped to announce a major fund-raising effort within several months. Barboza said he hopes to built the black patriots memorial on the Mall near the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and Constitution Gardens. Legislation allowing the construction of the memorial was enacted in 1986, but another measure was needed to allow it to be built in the city\'s monument-crowded Area I. That complex procedure was established by officials who worried that the city\'s prime tourist areas would become cluttered with memorials. The black patriots legislation was pushed through Congress by Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, R-Conn., whom Barboza enlisted in his fight several years ago. He is formerly of Plainville, Conn., in Mrs. Johnson\'s district.\r\n'),(1290,2,'The Swiss Supreme Court on Saturday announced it has ordered a Swiss bank to allow investigators to examine the bank account records of former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos. The court, in a ruling made May 16, denied a request filed by the Credit Suisse in March to bar Swiss investigators from examining the records. The ruling was made to give Swiss judicial authorities the possibility of locating any funds that might have been embezzled by the ousted leader or his family, according to Justice Minstry spokesman Joerg Kistler. The government of Philippine President Corazon Aquino has accused the Marcos family of corruption, fraud, embezzlement and other offenses and has asked Switzerland to help it recover funds deposited in Swiss accounts. But the ruling does not mean that Credit Suisse must return the Marcos fortune to Philippine authorities, Kistler said. He said a request by the Aquino administration for a return of the money was still blocked by appeals and that the accounts have been frozen. The Manila government has estimated that $1 billion of the deposed leader\'s money was in Swiss banks, most of it in Credit Suisse, but Swiss bankers have said the amount is exaggerated.\r\n'),(1291,2,'One of the last persons to receive a Jarvik artifical heart before federal approval of the device was withdrawn died after surgery to replace the pump with a donor organ. He spent 87 days on the device. Carl E. Bryant, 43, of Louisville, died Wednesday, eight hours after the transplant operation, said doctors at Louisville\'s Jewish Hospital. ``We did everything we could for Carl Bryant,\'\' said Dr. Laman A. Gray Jr., who transplanted the heart. Physicians said the donor heart, which became available late Tuesday, met the criteria for transplantation. But the left ventricle, or main pumping chamber, failed to function once the heart was inside Bryant. The Jarvik 7-70 assist device was implanted Dec. 22 at Humana Hospital-Audubon by Dr. William DeVries, who pioneered use of the artificial heart. ``The transplant surgery offered Carl\'s only real chance for survival,\'\' DeVries said in a statement Wednesday. Bryant was the second-to-last person to receive a Jarvik pump in this country before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration withdrew its approval of the device Jan. 8, said Gary Cole, an executive vice president with Symbion Inc., the Arizona manufacturer of the pumps. The agency said its inspections uncovered ``serious deficiencies\'\' in the way Symbion was carrying out studies with the device. In February, the FDA said it would allow use of the device as a last resort, but only when all other available treatments had failed and when no other life-saving device could be used. The device was last implanted in the United States in Columbus, Ohio, on Dec. 31, Cole said Thursday. He said two Jarvik pumps have been implanted in other countries since the FDA withdrawal. Cole said 159 Jarviks have been implanted as bridges to transplants since 1985. He said the longest-surviving patient to use the Jarvik while awaiting a donor organ was a French woman. She lived 603 days on the device. Dr. Barney Clark, the first person implanted with a Jarvik heart, died in 1983 after 112 days on the device. He received a Jarvik-7, which was supposed to be a premanent replacement for his heart. Bryant had a massive heart attack in July and underwent cardiac catheterization and angioplastic surgery in his left coronary artery. His wife, Cynthia, took him to the hospital Dec. 16 after he complained of chest pains. Three hours before he was to undergo triple bypass surgery, Bryant suffered a second massive heart attack. DeVries implanted the Jarvik device during a six-hour procedure. ``I have no qualms about Carl being on the assist device at all,\'\' Cynthia Bryant said. ``It worked wonderfully and may further research to help someone else. And we had three good months together that we would not have had otherwise.\'\'\r\n'),(1292,2,'U.S. military authorities are investigating reports that two tear gas canisters exploded outside a nightclub near an American base on Okinawa, a military spokesman said today. The incident was the latest in a series of mishaps to plague U.S. military forces in this country. On Friday, the commander of a U.S. destroyer was relieved of his post after practice shells from his ship reportedly missed hitting a Japanese vessel by 330 yards. Japan lodged a protest over the Nov. 9 incident off Boso Peninsula east of Tokyo. Frederick H. Michaelis Jr. was relieved of command of the guided missile destroyer USS Towers and transferred to Destroyer Squadron 15, military spokesman Rodriguez said. In October, rifle bullets struck a civilian housing area near a firing range on Okinawa. Earlier this month, two Marine helicopters collided in flight over the southern island, killing four servicemen. About 46,000 U.S. troops are stationed in the country under the U.S.-Japan mutual security pact. No injuries or damages were reported in the latest incident in Okinawa, Marine Master Gunnery Sgt. Jake Rodriguez said, but the blasts sent scores of crying, choking people into the streets late Saturday. Little else was known about the incident, Rodriguez added. ``Marine Corps officials acknowledged reports of an apparent release of two CS gas (tear gas) devices in the vicinity of Club Larosa, Chatancho,\'\' a statement from the U.S. military in Japan said. The residential neighborhood in Chatancho borders the U.S. Kadena Air Base. Military authorities and Japanese police were investigating fragments from the exploded devices to determine their origin and composition.\r\n'),(1293,2,'George Bush and Michael Dukakis put on a blizzard of last-minute campaign spending, for a combined total of $33.8 million in the final days of their presidential contest, financial disclosure forms showed Thursday. Dukakis outspent his Republican rival by more than $2 million in the last 2{ weeks, but he ultimately failed to stop Bush\'s march to victory. Their financial reports filed with the Federal Election Commission covered the period from Oct. 20 to Nov. 28, including bills that were paid off after the Nov. 8 election. Dukakis, who won only 10 states and the District of Columbia, poured out $18 million for his last stand _ much of it going into a TV campaign that featured the Democratic governor of Massachusetts talking to the camera in an intimate manner designed to make him seem less rigid. In the preceding month, Dukakis had spent $10.4 million. The price tag for Bush\'s final push came to $15.8 million, as he put on his own barrage of commercials and zigzagged across the country campaigning in battleground states. Dukakis showed $42.5 million in net spending for the entire campaign, Bush\'s $45.3 million. The net expenditures reflect actual spending on the campaign, not including such reimbursable costs as payment for charter plane seats used by the traveling press corps. Dukakis\' campaign treasurer, Robert Farmer, said Thursday the Democrats have no reason to feel badly about spending so much money and not winning more states. ``We have nothing to be ashamed of,\'\' he said. ``It was a very negative campaign and we probably weren\'t prepared for that and we could have responded earlier.\'\' Still, Farmer said, Dukakis ran close in several states he did not win, and made a far better showing than Democratic nominee Walter Mondale who won only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia four years ago. ``We are very proud,\'\' he said in a telephone interview. Farmer noted that in addition to the spending by the Dukakis campaign itself, the Democratic National Committee raised a record $68 million for the election. He said this ``created a level playing field\'\' for the first time with the traditionally better heeled Republican National Committee. The 380,000 people who gave money to the DNC ``demonstrated there was a lot of commitment to the Democratic party and to Michael Dukakis,\'\' Farmer said. Each candidate received $46 million from the federal Treasury to pay for their campaigns. The money comes from the voluntary $1 checkoff on individual income tax returns. Both campaigns showed receipts and expenditures in excess of that amount, due to differing accounting practices. Bush borrowed start-up money from the separate fund that is used to pay for legal and accounting compliance with federal election law. In Dukakis\' case, it reflected his compliance fund reimbursing his campaign committee for such legal and accounting expenses, said accountant Mary Wong. Dukakis still had bills of $1.7 million, with $4 million available in the bank to pay them off and another $4 million in receivables. Bush had $807,155 in cash on hand, with bills of $764,597 and $911,667 owed to the campaign.\r\n'),(1294,2,'Business failures declined by 10.1 percent in the first quarter over a year ago as more farmers and retailers climbed out of the red, a report released Wednesday said. Dun & Bradstreet Corp., a business-information concern, said 15,211 businesses nationwide went under during the first three months of this year, compared with 16,924 in 1987. Joseph W. Duncan, Dun & Bradstreet\'s chief economist, said 75 percent of the improvement was due to a decline in failures in the agriculture and retailing sectors. First-quarter retailing failures slipped 17 percent, to 2,918 from 3,515, while agriculture failures plunged 53 percent, to 596 from 1,266. ``The strong levels of consumer demand that characterized the early years of the current economic expansion also resulted in a high level of entrepreneurial activity in retailing,\'\' Duncan said. He attributed the improvement in the agriculture sector to the introduction of Chapter 12 into the federal bankruptcy laws. Chapter 12 protects farmers from their creditors while allowing them to reorganize. Other large declines in business failures included: mining, down 53 percent; transportation and public utilities, down 13.2 percent; manufacturing, down 11.1 percent; and construction, down 9.8 percent, Dun & Bradstreet said. By region, the West-South-Central states _ Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana _ fared the best, with business failures down nearly 30 percent. But the South Atlantic states _ New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania _ had a 68 percent jump in failures. ``Until further data are available in 1988, it will be difficult to tell if the trend in New York and New Jersey is somehow linked to the October (stock market) crash,\'\' Duncan said.\r\n'),(1295,2,'Plans by the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. to buy half of Texaco Inc.\'s refining and marketing assets could further erode the domestic oil industry and increase reliance on foreign supplies, Rep. John Bryant said Friday in asking the treasury secretary to investigate the proposed deal. ``The enormity of this acquisition causes us to believe a second look should be taken at the matter, because of its possible impact on the domestic oil and gas industry and on our ability to become energy independent,\'\' Bryant said. Bryant, a Dallas Democrat, Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, Sen. Jeff Bingamon, D-N.M., and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., appealed to Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady to investigate the joint venture, named Star Enterprises, on national security grounds. The Saudi-Texaco deal, announced Nov. 10, would include three refineries, 50 distribution terminals, 1,400 service stations and 10,000 franchised gasoline stations in 23 Eastern and Gulf Coast states. In their letter, the Democrats said they believe the acquisition falls under the law enabling the government to block mergers involving a foreign interests if there is evidence that national security is threatened. The acquisition, they wrote, could ``seriously increase U.S. dependence on foreign oil, threaten the viability of the domestic oil industry and jeopardize the well-being of American consumers.\'\' ``The lessons of the 1973-74 oil embargo and the 1978-79 shortage taught our country all too well the economic and political consequences of reliance on vulnerable oil supplies,\'\' the letter said. ``What is particulary noteworthy is that 96 percent of the capacity of the three refineries will be used in refining Saudi Arabian crude oil,\'\' Bryant said. ``So you\'ve got a circumstance that Saudi Arabia has guaranteed itself an outlet for crude oil into the American market, giving them the option of lowering crude prices while earning increased prices at the gasoline marketing level. This could amount to an enormous loss to domestic producers and leave us even more dependent on foreigh oil.\'\' Also, he said, foreign countries are immune from our antitrust laws, ``so it\'s not clear we could enforce antitrust laws against this merged entity if needed to do so to protect consumers from market manipulation.\'\' He said Saudi Arabia has announced a concerted effort to expand its dominance in U.S. oil markets and that its goal is to become the 10th largest seller of gasoline in the United States as a first step.\r\n'),(1296,2,'Vice President George Bush, seeking to exploit Americans\' crime fears as a campaign weapon, is turning prison inmate Willie Horton Jr. into a symbol of what he calls opponent Michael Dukakis\' liberal views. It was Horton who, while on furlough from the Massachusetts prison where he was serving time for murder, brutally slashed a Maryland man and twice raped his fiancee last year. He is now behind bars in Maryland. Because Dukakis, as Massachusetts governor, was in charge of the prison system at the time, Bush sees the Horton incident as a political mother lode. While polls place crime somewhere in the middle of voters\' concerns, it is closely linked to the drug issue, which rides atop the worry list. National crime statistics released this weekend show crime up 1.8 percent last year, ending a five-year decline. And 34.7 million people were victimized by criminals _ nearly one in three American households. ``It has tremendous saliency,\'\' said GOP political consultant Eddie Mahe. ``It ties into the drug issue so closely. Everybody knows the drug problem is driving the crime problem through the roof.\'\' Bush had made crime _ and Horton in particular _ the basis for anti-Dukakis campaign speeches and a television spot highlighting the crime issue, and he has recruited Horton\'s victim _ Cliff Barnes, who was cut 22 times in the stomach _ as a campaign surrogate. Deputy Bush press secretary Mark Goodin even keeps a photo of Horton on the wall in his office. ``I didn\'t ask to be brought into this,\'\' Barnes said Monday at a news conference in Texas. ``I didn\'t invite Willie Horton to my House and I didn\'t let him out of prison.\'\' The attack has been going on for weeks, and Dukakis was at first slow to respond. But now the Democratic campaign is fighting back and hoping the emotionalism of Bush\'s message will backfire by Election Day. Over the weekend, Dukakis called Bush ``shameless\'\' for using crime victims to win votes. ``Unlike Mr. Bush, I\'ve been a chief executive on the front lines of fighting crime. Unlike Mr. Bush, who will not take responsibility for anything, I as chief executive took full responsibility for that tragic Horton case and acted to change that policy,\'\' Dukakis said, referring to his signing of a state law in April revoking furloughs for first-degree murderers. Dukakis also has put together a television spot that seeks to shove the issue back at Bush. The ad cites a 1981 rape and murder carried out by an inmate staying at a Houston halfway house that Bush helped start while he was a congressman. Dukakis says two similar murders occurred under the California furlough system in the early 1970s, at a time when Ronald Reagan, then state governor, supported furloughs. Dukakis also points to a 13 percent drop in violent crime in Massachusetts since 1982, the largest decline among major industrial states. He says that as the state\'s chief executive, he had to face real problems of running the Massachusetts prison system, while Bush has never been tested on the issue. Far from being out of the mainstream, the Massachusetts law allowing prison furloughs is in line with the rest of the nation. A 1987 national survey found that all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the federal prison system have some provision for granting short-term furloughs for prisoners, and two-thirds of them permit furloughs for prisoners serving life terms. Bush\'s use of the issue is ``an oversimplification of a real complex thing,\'\' said Emily Herrick, an editor with Contact Inc., the non-profit criminal justice information organization that conducted the survey. More than 200,000 furloughs were granted last year for 53,000 inmates, the survey found. No murders were reported. All but three states _ Hawaii, Oregon and North Carolina _ had success rates in excess of 90 percent, meaning the inmates returned at the appointed time and place without violating terms of the furlough. Bush hit the crime issue again Monday, renewing his proposals to create an anti-gang unit in the Justice Department, spend more money to build prisons and bolster programs to compensate crime victims. ``I think there is something very wrong when there is so much sympathy for criminals and very little left over for victims,\'\' Bush told a campaign crowd in Trenton, N.J. ``Frankly, law-abiding Americans are fed up with the cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on them by those who are soft on crime.\'\' Despite his rhetoric, Bush has been short on specifics. Asked what he would do about the furlough issue, the vice president has said only that as president he would have his attorney general review the federal prison system\'s policies. ``I don\'t have any specific feelings at all,\'\' he said, although he said he wants to make sure the federal system doesn\'t ``slip into the Massachusetts model.\'\'\r\n'),(1297,2,'The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, which rose 52.93 points over the past two sessions, gained 10.13 to 2,627.25. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones by about 8 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 928 up, 566 down and 474 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 184.41 million shares, against 152.59 million in the previous session. The NYSE\'s composite index added 0.91, closing at 183.07. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index rose 1.50 to 352.90.\r\n'),(1298,2,'with Michael Dukakis by saying one of his daughters works for the Democratic nominee but assured viewers: ``She doesn\'t tell me what questions to ask, I don\'t tell her how to run the governor\'s campaign.\'\' Koppel, host of ABC\'s ``Nightline\'\' program, ended his 90-minute interview with the Massachusetts governor Tuesday night br telling viewers he had a ``small housekeeping note.\'\' He said his daughter, Deidre, works for the Dukakis campaign. ``It was a choice that she made on her own after she graduated from college,\'\' Koppel said. ``I can tell you without having to worry about shading the truth in any fashion, she doesn\'t tell me what questions to ask, I don\'t tell her how to run the governor\'s campaign, and let that be the end of it.\'\' Miss Koppel has worked in several areas of the campaign, including the press staff in North Carolina and also in the campaign\'s Boston headquarters.\r\n'),(1299,2,'The Texas House speaker was indicted on charges he accepted $5,000 from a law firm and didn\'t disclose it, joining legislative leaders in the two other most populous states under an ethical cloud. House speakers in New York and California also are under scrutiny as they prepare for new legislative sessions. The investigation in Texas also involves other legislators. A Travis County grand jury returned indictments on two misdemeanor charges Friday against Gib Lewis, alleging he solicited and received a gift from the San Antonio-based law firm of Heard Goggan Blair & Williams, then failed to report it. Despite the charges, Lewis\' lawyer said the lawmaker would seek an unprecedented fifth term as House speaker. Lewis has denied the allegations and his lawyer said he\'d plead innocent to the charges. ---&equals; NEW YORK (AP) - Authorities blamed the first snowstorm of the season for an electrical fire that trapped four rush-hour trains in a smoke-filled subway tunnel, killing one person and injuring more than 150 others. In Boston, authorities investigating a trolley accident that injured 33 people Friday said tests showed the trolley driver had high levels of alcohol in his system. It was the second rail accident this month in the city\'s Back Bay section. The driver of the trolley, which rammed a streetcar that was unloading passengers, blamed faulty brakes for the collision, officials said. But investigators ruled that out as a possible cause, said Peter Dimond, spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The fire Friday morning in New York filled trains with smoke in a subway tunnel linking Manhattan and Brooklyn. Fire and transit officials said melting snow from a 7-inch snowfall overnight apparently caused an electrical short-circuit. ---&equals; WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dn Quayle doesn\'t abide discrimination at golf clubs, his office says, but he still plays at one of the most exclusive all-male courses near the capital as an honorary member. Quayle on Friday canceled a second round of golf at the all-white Cypress Point golf club near Monterey, Calif., after he learned the facility was mired in a racial controversy, said his press secretary, David Beckwith. He had played there Thursday, unaware, Beckwith said, that the club was ruled ineligible for its share of the 1991 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am tournament next month because it has no black members. Quayle was ``unwilling to leave any impression that he condones any form of discrimination,\'\' so he left California and returned to Vail, Colo., where he had been on a skiing vacation, Beckwith said. But the spokesman said he could not explain why Quayle is an honorary member of the Burning Tree Club in suburban Bethesda, Md., which bars women from its course. ---&equals; SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California stopped telling casual marijuana users ``smoke a joint, go to jail\'\' 15 years ago. But the federal government\'s new version - ``smoke a joint, lose your driver\'s license\'\' - promises to rekindle debate over the state\'s pot law. A little-noted amendment to a new federal highway funding law seeks to use federal funding as a weapon against liberal state drug laws. It would particularly affect California and New York because of those states\' relatively liberal marijuana laws and large amounts of federal funding. The federal law calls for every state to pass a law in 1991-92 requiring a six-month driver license suspension for anyone convicted of violating any drug law, including possession of marijuana for personal use. States that refuse could lose 5 percent of their federal highway aid in the 12 months starting Oct. 1, 1993. That would be $60 million at current levels of aid to California, said the amendment\'s sponsor, Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-N.Y. The amendment passed in July. Leaders of California\'s Democratic-controlled Legislature chafed at the federal interference, but Gov.-elect Pete Wilson, a Republican, agrees that the state\'s drug laws are too lenient. Solomon\'s amendment lets a state avoid a monetary penalty only if both the Legislature and the governor oppose the requirement of license suspensions.\r\n'),(1300,2,'Domestic steel production totaled 1,812,000 net tons during the week ending Feb. 17, 1990, down 0.1 percent from the previous week, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. The week\'s production represented 80.9 percent of the industry\'s domestic capacity, the steel industry group said Tuesday. American steelmakers produced 2,005,000 net tons in the same week last year, AISI said. Domestic steel production so far this year is 12,191,000 net tons, 9.6 percent below last year\'s pace, AISI said. Production by district for last week, (previous week in parentheses). North East Coast 236,000 tons (232,000 tons); Pittsburgh-Youngstown 277,000 tons (249,000 tons); Lake Erie 143,000 tons (139,000 tons); Detroit 150,000 tons (151,000 tons); Indiana-Chicago 454,000 tons (493,000 tons); Southern 252,000 tons (245,000 tons); Western 95,000 tons (93,000 tons).\r\n'),(1301,2,'The United States will suffer a sharp loss of influence in Europe if Americans withdraw their troops, West German Defense Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg says. ``In the past, American cooperation and influence on European policy was helpful, and in future, American policy and influence in Europe can be helpful,\'\' Stoltenberg said Tuesday evening. ``But without any soldiers or significant (numbers of) soldiers, your influence in all matters of security policy will sharply decline,\'\' he added. ``And I doubt whether this is desirable.\'\' Stoltenberg said in a speech before the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of the Johns Hopkins University that Americans should maintain a substantial military presence for the foreseeable future. He said the United States might be able to reduce its forces in Central Europe beyond the 195,000 troops proposed by President Bush, if that could be coordinated with European allies and the Soviet Union. The defense minister met with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney earlier Tuesday, and they discussed German unification and other European issues, Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said. A Pentagon source who spoke on background said the officials discussed problems with East-West talks in Vienna to cut conventional forces in Europe. He declined to say what the problems were. Stoltenberg called on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to retain nuclear forces in Europe, but said their numbers should be greatly reduced.\r\n'),(1302,2,'Some soldiers being sent to the Persian Gulf have their children at home to worry about. But Air Force reservist Lorain Kuryla, who is nicknamed ``Grambo,\'\' also has her five grandchildren. When the United States began sending troops to the gulf after Iraq\'s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, Kuryla _ an Air Force reservist for 19 years _ didn\'t hesitate to answer a call for volunteers. ``This is what I\'ve been trained for, and I\'m glad for the opportunity to serve my country,\'\' said Kuryla, who turns 63 on Friday. ``In fact I feel better about going because I have no small children at home to care for,\'\' she adds. ``I feel it will relieve pressure from young mothers and fathers about being sent.\'\' ``It\'s kind of weird to think of my mother with an M-16,\'\' said her son, Michael Kuryla, 37. ``I can honestly say that my mother wears combat boots.\'\' Leaving behind her family in west suburban Hillside, Kuryla, a master sergeant from the 928th Tactical Airlift Group, left O\'Hare International Airport on Wednesday, bound for the Middle East. Kuryla works in Air Force personnel and will be one of three officers sent to the region to handle records, her son said. The grandchildren were the ones to come up with the ``Grambo\'\' nickname.\r\n'),(1303,2,'A company that once beamed pornographic movies via satellite to television viewers pleaded guilty to a second federal charge, prosecutors said. Home Dish Only Satellite Networks Inc. will pay a $150,000 fine and has stipulated that movies it distributed via satellite, such as ``Hard Core Girlfriends\'\' and ``Ramb-Ohh Sex Platoon,\'\' were pornographic by community standards, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Lambert said Wednesday. The movies were beamed to 30,000 subscribers to its American Exxxtasy Channel. Company attorneys appeared Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Aldon Anderson. They entered the plea to a count of distribution of obscene matter via satellite transmission. As part of the plea bargain, company operators Paul L. Klein and Jeffrey Younger have promised to refrain from promoting or distributing sexually explicit films or publications and will cooperate with investigators looking into the pornography industry, Lambert said. The company pleaded guilty to a similar charge Nov. 29 in Buffalo, N.Y. Until investigators pulled the plug on the operation last March, Home Dish was the only nationwide satellite network beaming hard-core pornography to home television viewers, the Justice Department said. The movies were transmitted from the company\'s Buffalo office to a satellite uplink station operated by U.S. Satellite Inc. in Murray, Utah, which in turn relayed them to a satellite. In Salt Lake, the company pleaded guilty for the Feb. 26 transmission of the movie ``Hard Core Girlfriends,\'\' Lambert said. The charge in New York stemmed from the transmission a day earlier of a movie entitled ``Hot Shorts.\'\' U.S. Attorney Dee Benson in Utah said U.S. Satellite was not prosecuted because it cooperated with the investigation. Benson said Klein and Younger were not prosecuted individually because of their willingness to stay out of the business and cooperate with a Department of Justice\'s investigation into the pornography industry.\r\n'),(1304,2,'Secretary of State George P. Shultz is gearing up for a trip to the Middle East in June in another effort to promote Arab-Israeli peace talks, a U.S. official said Friday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a final decision to make the trip is likely next week. Shultz would make stops in Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, hoping to open negotiations over Palestinian self-rule and then on an overall Mideast settlement. He would fly to the Middle East at the windup of the Moscow summit meeting June 2 and then attend a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization\'s foreign ministers in Madrid June 9-10, the official said. Two trips by Shultz to the Middle East this year failed to produce peace talks, but the secretary refuses to give up. ``Who\'s afraid to struggle against odds?,\'\' he said at the end of the last venture in April. ``What am I saving myself for, anyway?\'\' He also suggested that Arabs and Israelis, despite their public lack of enthusiasm for negotiations, had privately urged him to keep trying. Shultz\'s first goal is a peace conference that would sponsor, but not steer, negotiations to provide some form of self-rule for the 1.5 million Palestinian Arabs who live on the Israeli-held West Bank and in Gaza. The secretary told a Senate appropriations subcommittee last week that ``under the right circumstances\'\' King Hussein of Jordan would be agreeable. However, he also testified that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir had made the conference the ``centerpiece\'\' of his objections to Shultz\'s plan. Shultz also was unsuccessful last month in Moscow in trying to persuade the Soviet Union to accept a limited role in the negotiations. Shamir _ and Shultz _ are unwilling to give the Soviets an opportunity to shape the outline of an Arab-Israeli settlement. But Hussein is insisting on Soviet involvement. On the other hand, Jordan is resisting negotiations with Israel without a guarantee that it would recover all the land it lost during the 1967 Mideast war. Shultz has advised Hussein that was not ``in the cards.\'\' But he backs the idea of Israel trading some territory on the West Bank for peace and said the future of Jerusalem should be decided in negotiations. Despite the long odds, Shultz said he did not think his plan was ``fated to failure.\'\' Shultz\'s plan called for a peace conference in mid-April, the opening of negotations on the Palestinians May 1 and a second stage of talks on an overall settlement beginning Dec. 1. The first two deadlines have passed. Still, Shultz has said he will keep trying to get negotiations started in the 8{ months that remain to the Reagan administration in order to give the next president a head start.\r\n'),(1305,2,'A second former U.S. soldier involved in a spy ring that sold secrets to the Soviets apparently provided information that led to the arrest of the alleged ringleader, a West German newspaper said today. The Die Welt newspaper of Bonn also said that ``no charges have been filed against the (second) American citizen, although he is still in the Federal Republic.\'\' The man alleged to have led the ring, former U.S. Army Sgt. Clyde Lee Conrad, remained in prison today, facing espionage charges carrying a maximum 10-year sentence. Conrad allegedly paid another U.S. soldier ``a five-figure sum\'\' for obtaining secret NATO information, according to chief West German prosecutor Kurt Rebmann. ``The information that led to the arrest of the alleged international spy ringleader, former U.S. Army Sgt. Clyde Lee Conrad, apparently came from the U.S. Army soldier who was recruited by Conrad to provide information after Conrad left the service in 1985,\'\' the conservative Die Welt said. Although the West Germans say the second American was a soldier when he was recruited for espionage, the Washington Post quoted administration sources as saying the man has since left the Army. In Washington, a U.S. official said Friday that Conrad had a top secret security clearance before leaving the U.S. Army. The U.S. official also conceded that Conrad was never subjected to a periodic follow-up investigation during the time he held the high-security clearance. West German and U.S. news media reports have said the spy ring sold the Soviets secret documents about nuclear missile bases, military pipelines and NATO troop strength. Officials say the ring started operating in the late 1970s. According to a report Friday night on CBS News, the 41-year-old Conrad collected more than $1 million for peddling the secrets. CBS attributed the report to a West German newspaper that it did not identify. West German investigators have said they believe Conrad kept the money in numbered Swiss bank accounts.\r\n'),(1306,2,'A man claiming he had a bomb took over an America West airliner late Tuesday and demanded to be flown to Cuba, but was arrested soon after the plane made an emergency landing in Austin, police said. No one was seriously injured during Flight 727 from Houston to Las Vegas, with 34 passengers and five crew members aboard, or the arrest at Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, officials said. SWAT team members overpowered the man aboard the plane, officials said. FBI agent Byron Sage identifed the man as Jose Manuel Gonzales-Gonzales, 39, and said he was believed to be from New Orleans. Gonzales-Gonzales was believed to be of Cuban descent. The flight was diverted to Austin and landed shortly before 11:30 p.m. after trouble was reported aboard, America West spokeswoman Kathy Christensen said in Phoenix, where the airline is based. ``The man said he had a bomb and had some electronic device that blinked when he pointed to the front of the aircraft,\'\' said passenger Herb Atwood of Cold Spring, Texas. ``He grabbed one of the stewardesses and had something around her neck,\'\' Atwood said in an interview with radio station KVET. ``He was shouting orders. He said he wanted them to fly to Cuba, but the pilot said that we did not have enough fuel.\'\' The man ordered all the passengers to move to the front of the aircraft, Atwood said. Austin police received a report of a bomb threat at 11:28 p.m., said police spokesman Harold Elmore. After the plane landed, nearly 40 police officers, including hostage negotiators, surrounded the aircraft shortly before midnight. Police Capt. Loyd Polk said he climbed up an escape hatch into the aircraft, then subdued Gonzales-Gonzales. ``I saw he had the stewardess, so I took action immediately,\'\' Polk said. ``I had a struggle with him, but I was able to hold him to the ground until more help arrived.\'\' Passengers evacuated the plane, and police began searching the airplane for a bomb. ``We doubt there was a bomb aboard the plane,\'\' Elmore said. Gonzales-Gonzales was taken to a hospital early Wednesday for treatment of cuts to his head suffered when he was arrested, said city emergency services shift commander Bob Gutierrez. The stewardess who was grabbed was also taken to a hospital for minor cuts and burns when coffee spilled on her, Gutierrez said. Several passengers were treated at the airport for minor injuries suffered when they evacuated the aircraft. Elmore said passengers were taken to an airport terminal for questioning. City aviation director Charles Gates said the passengers would be put up in a hotel for the night and flown out Wednesday morning. Sage said authorities intended to charge the man with air piracy and kidnapping. ``You always hear about this,\'\' passenger Atwood said, ``and I never thought it would happen to me. I was scared like everyone else. I was looking forward to a trip to Vegas. But my gambling ended before it started.\'\'\r\n'),(1307,2,'An Oklahoma State Penitentiary inmate who had armed himself with a screwdriver and took three hostages gave up late Saturday after he was apparently overpowered by a hostage staff member. Correction Department spokesman Jerry Massie said the hostage situation ended shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday, more than 12 hours after it began. ``There was some kind of a scuffle\'\' inside the office where inmate Robert Taylor was holding two prisoners and a staff counselor, Massie said. The four men then came walking out. ``Everyone seems to be fine,\'\' Massie said. ``There appears to be no serious problems.\'\' He said the hostages, identified as prison counselor Chuck Ryden and inmates Robert King and Allen Livingston, were taken to the prison\'s medical unit to be examined for injuries. ``We don\'t know exactly what happened yet,\'\' Massie said. ``It looks like the officer (Ryden) was able to overpower the inmate.\'\' Taylor\'s only weapon was apparently a screwdriver, authorities said. Linda Morgan, a public information officer at the prison, said Taylor grabbed Ryden, a correctional counselor, at about 10:20 a.m. after they went together to an office to discuss a problem. ``The other two inmates were out cleaning and painting and entered the office to get more supplies at which time they became hostages themselves,\'\' she said. Saturday afternoon, Taylor\'s request for a pitcher of tea was granted in exchange for allowing a prison doctor to examine Ryden. The counselor had his blood pressure checked and ``seemed fine,\'\' Ms. Morgan said. Taylor had demanded that the warden contact the governor\'s office and that he be allowed to have an attorney present when he presented his grievances. Ms. Morgan declined to say what the grievances were, other than to say that he originally approached the counselor with a complaint about his prison diet. Ms. Morgan said Taylor is serving a 15-year sentence for second-degree burglary and had been an inmate at the prison since 1986. Warden James Saffle had said he wouldn\'t meet with Taylor or contact the governor\'s office until the situation has ended, Ms. Morgan said. Ms. Morgan said that approximately80 prisoners live in the cells in the section of the prison where the incident took place, and ``all are in their cells.\'\' The McAlester penitentiary was the site of an uprising in December 1985 when inmates protesting prison conditions held seven hostages for nearly 17 hours before releasing them unharmed. The institution has been under a 23-hour-a-day lockdown since that episode, officials said.\r\n'),(1308,2,'When Marisa Fernandez de Sanda went to a doctor in 1981 to complain about terrible itching and aches all over her body, she was told these were ``normal signs of spring.\'\' But as spring turned to summer and her condition grew worse, the 25-year-old mother of a small son and a baby began to think about the five-quart plastic jug of bargain ``olive oil\'\' she bought on the advice of a neighbor and the news she was seeing on television about people dying from something called ``atypical pneumonia.\'\' Eventually more than 700 people would be dead and 25,000 others would become mysteriously ill. Marisa Fernandez was one who became ill. ``I had always bought sunflower oil, but after my second pregnancy, the doctor recommended olive oil,\'\' she said in a recent interview in her home in the Province of Madrid. ``So when my neighbor said she knew a man who was selling it real cheap, I thought, here\'s a bargain.\'\' Her friend Clara Burgues de Dominguez bought three jugs of the oil at a street market because her husband was unemployed ``and every peseta counts when you\'re trying to make ends meet.\'\' In July 1981 both Marisa Fernandez and Clara Burgues were admitted to the hospital and told they were suffering from what had gone from ``atypical pneumonia\'\' to a mysterious ``toxic syndrome\'\' that developed from the oil the two women thought was olive oil but in fact allegedly was rapeseed oil processed for industrial use, not for human consumption. The state brought 38 defendants to trial on charges of involvement in the import, refining and sale of the oil. Fifteen months of hearings ended in June but the verdict of the three-judge tribunal is not expected for six months, possibly a year. The state claims the oil was the cause of the deaths and the illness that affects the respiratory system, nerves, joints and muscles. ``I used the oil for everything _ making stews, frying meat and potatoes, salads, making mayonnaise,\'\' Marisa Fernandez said. ``I loved to dip bread in it when I was cooking and eat it on the spot.\'\' Her husband, Juan, and son, David, fell ill briefly but were not hospitalized. The baby did not become ill but was without his mother for the first six months of his life, something Juan Sanda thinks was equally as serious. ``The first time I was hospitalized for 25 days, my weight had fallen from 56 to 43 kilos (123 to 94 pounds),\'\' Marisa Fernandez said. ``I was in a room with about 25 other women, and they pumped us full of pills and shots. Every day someone would leave, and we would know they had died.\'\' Said Clara Burgues: ``When the pain got too bad, we would grab on to lamp posts when we were walking in the street. ``When we went to the hospital, they treated us like guinea pigs. They didn\'t know what to do with us, how to treat us, what to treat us for. They didn\'t have enough beds so they processed us through real quick. Then we just had to be readmitted again when it became unbearable.\'\' Marisa Fernandez returned to the hospital in September 1981, unable to use her hands or feet or to feed herself. ``I had no appetite, and all around me, people, particularly young girls, were dying.\'\' At 33, after three years of acupuncture and continuing twice weekly physical therapy sessions with other toxic syndrome sufferers, she still has frequent cramps and little feeling on the right side of her body. She can no longer type and can\'t work outside her home and receives from the government a monthly disability pension the equivalent of $270. ``There is something all those affected seem to feel,\'\' she said, looking at a photograph of herself, emaciated, in a bathing suit following her hospitalization. ``We all carry the disease on our faces, like a shadow.\'\' Although the Spanish press and most of those affected by the toxic syndrome blame the oil for the illness, Clara Burgues is not so sure. ``When I testified at the trial, they asked me to say whether I believed the oil was the cause of my problems. I told them how did they expect me, a housewife from a lower-middle class neighborhood, to answer that question. I told them of 28 people among my neighbors who all used the oil, I was the only one who got sick. But then they all ate tomatoes, too.\'\' That was a reference to the claim of some defense attorneys that the illness was due to organophosphate pesticides used on tomatoes grown in southeastern Spain around Almeria. Dr. Richard Doll, chief pathologist for Britain\'s Imperial Cancer Research Fund, testified at the trial that the oil was the cause of the illness. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the European branch office of the World Health Organization agreed with Doll\'s finding. Both Marisa Fernandez and Clara Burgues say they are not sure they will ever get out from under the shadow of the mysterious illness. ``When it first struck, we were treated like lepers by neighbors and sometimes even family. They were afraid they would catch it,\'\' Marisa Fernandez said. The illness, once thought to be caused by a virus, is not contagious. Added Clara Burgues: ``But even now that we appeared to have recovered, we always have doubts _ whenever we get something, an ache, a problem, we wonder, could it be something caused by the illness. We are living the syndrome of the toxic syndrome.\'\'\r\n'),(1309,2,'Douglas and Joan Wolff know health care costs are skyrocketing, but they found a $15,543 bill for emergency room treatment of Wolff\'s minor scrapes a little hard to swallow. Speaking of swallowing, Wolff was charged more than $3,000 apiece for the five Tylenol capsules he was given. Mrs. Wolff said Thursday that reading the computerized bill almost sent them both back to the emergency room. ``At first we were shocked. We couldn\'t believe it,\'\' she said. ``Then we just had to laugh. We knew it had to be a mistake because all he did was get cleaned up over there.\'\' St. Mary-Corwin Hospital administrators acknowledged the computer error and assured the Wolffs an amended version of the bill would arrive soon. The bill was not without a touch of heart. The hospital offered the couple a 10 percent discount if the bill was paid within 20 days. The discount of $1,554 would bring the total due down to a mere $13,989.\r\n'),(1310,2,'Twenty-seven people who attended a dinner following a funeral in northeastern China came down with food poisoning and 14 of them died, the official China Daily reported today. The 13 others became seriously ill after the dinner last week in Yixian County, according to the report. The dinner was held by Yu Huqing, head of the gardening department of Jinzhou City in Yixian County following the death of his mother, the newspaper said. The report did not say if Yu was among those who died.\r\n'),(1311,2,'President Bush warned Congress on Friday not to look for big savings from Pentagon spending and complained that his key domestic initiatives were mired ``in the jungles on Capitol Hill.\'\' While applauding the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe, Bush cautioned against expectations of any ``peace dividend\'\' in the military budget, saying that is ``not money in the bank. It is more like a possible future inheritance.\'\' Meanwhile, he said, ``It\'s impossible today to know what will unfold in the next six months, let alone the next six years.\'\' Bush said the U.S. invasion of Panama was proof that America must have a ``ready and highly effective defense force.\'\' The president spoke to about 1,500 people at a gathering of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce. Later, he met privately with the family of Army Pfc. James Markwell, a Ranger medic killed by gunfire in his drop zone in the Panama invasion. The White House said Bush expressed his personal sympathy and gratitude for the sacrifice that Markwell made for his country. Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, speaking with reporters later, said the president\'s talk with the family of the dead soldier was ``a pretty emotional meeting.\'\' Fitzwater said that ``we were all pretty broken up about it,\'\' referring to the president, as well as several aides and Secret Service agents. Fitzwater said that the soldier\'s mother, Mrs. William Rouse, showed the president a poem that her son had written when he was 15 years old about being in the military, as well as a ``death message\'\' that he had written before going into combat. Fitzwater said that in that message her son ``was proud of what he was doing. It was a little message for each of the people he knew in life.\'\' ``That was really tough,\'\' Fitzwater said. Bush also has sent letters of condolence to the families of all those killed in Panama, officials said. The president\'s combative stand toward Congress sets the tone for legislative battles likely to erupt after lawmakers return to work Jan. 23. Bush will send his budget to Congress on Jan. 29 and deliver his State of the Union Address on Jan. 30. He said the Democratic-controlled Congress had stalled action on his plans to lower capital gains taxes, beef up education programs, strengthen clean-air regulations and fight crime. ``And these four issues are bogged down in the jungles on Capitol Hill,\'\' Bush said. ``The clock is running and America\'s patience is running out,\'\' Bush said. While saying he was not trying to assign any blame, Bush said, ``America wants it done right, America wants it done responsibly and America wants it done now.\'\' The fall of hardline communist governments in Eastern Europe has prompted calls in Congress and elsewhere for lowering defense spending and targeting the money for other purposes. ``That\'s like the next-of-kin who spend the inheritance before the will is read,\'\' Bush said. ``Of course, whenever a potential inheritance looms,\'\' he said, ``there are those eager to rush out and squander it, to buy new things, to spend, to spend, to spend _ spending funds they don\'t yet have. ``Then the bills start coming, and the inheritance may not,\'\' Bush said. ``And what was promised as a bonus becomes a burden.\'\' He won applause by saying, ``most Americans know we not only must maintain our defenses but still must reduce the deficit.\'\' Bush also paid a visit to predominantly black Taft High School, where he hailed a program of business leaders, government officials and educators to reduce dropouts and improve academic performance. Several speakers told Bush there was a sense of hopelessness among inner-city youths and asked what he could do about it. He said the best answer was ``encouraging the strength of the family.\'\' Bush said federal resources for education were limited but that he would call for some increases in overall school spending when he presents his fiscal 1991 budget to Congress on Jan. 23, including expanding the Head Start program for disadvantaged pre-school children. But, the president added, ``I don\'t think you can design a curriculum to lift the self-esteem of a kid. It\'s got to come from peers, it\'s got to come from family, it\'s got to come from dedicated volunteers or workers who are saying, `Hey, you are somebody. You can amount to something.\'\'\r\n'),(1312,2,'Cardinal Bernard Yago said Saturday a plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II was uncovered prior to a papal visit earlier this month, but denied Ivory Coast opposition parties were involved. The cardinal attributed the plot to a group based in Ghana, and condemned President Felix Houphouet-Boigny for disclosing details about the plot. ``He should have kept it secret. ... He has held political interests above those of the (Roman Catholic) Church,\'\' the cardinal said in rare criticism of Ivory Coast\'s leader of 30 years. The cardinal noted Houphouet-Boigny accusation\'s came as the president faced the nation\'s first multiparty elections on Oct. 28. The 85-year-old president did not name those he claimed were responsible for hiring mercenaries and former soldiers to kill John Paul when he visited Ivory Coast on Sept. 9-10. No attack was made on the pontiff. Yago said one assassination plotter had confessed to a parish priest, and said he was ``disgusted\'\' by Houphouet-Boigny\'s ``political use\'\' of knowledge that came from the confessional. Emile Boga, a leader of the opposition Ivorian Popular Front, called the assassination plot allegations ``a fabrication.\'\' The cardinal said the pontiff had been told about the plot before the visit. Earlier, chief Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro, asked about Houphouet-Boigny\'s claim, said, ``We never comment on such matters.\'\'\r\n'),(1313,2,'President Bush\'s quest to aid the poor by substituting self-help programs for government handouts is sparking friction among White House aides, administration officials and conservative members of Congress. It even prompted a call by Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., for Budget Director Richard Darman either to recant a recent speech or resign. A group of conservative policy makers inside the White House, with strong backing from HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, is pressing to make ``empowering\'\' initiatives in housing, education and welfare the centerpiece of Bush\'s next State of the Union address. The general philosophy, say those backing the concept, is to give people tools to help themselves, rather than having government social programs do it for them. For example, housing legislation signed by Bush on Wednesday aims to help poor people buy public housing apartments or vacant homes. ``A cornerstone of our effort to reduce the heavy hand of government is this idea of empowering people, not bureaucracies,\'\' the president said in signing the measure. The debate was sparked partly by a speech last April by James P. Pinkerton, Bush\'s deputy assistant for policy planning, in which he said the idea is to enact ``policies that empower people to make choices for themselves.\'\' But the concept drew a public rebuke earlier this month from Darman, who ridiculed the slogan of ``the new paradigm\'\' as pretentious and meaningless. Darman dismissed the idea of boosting the use of vouchers and decentralized policymaking as a throwback to old initiatives that did not work in the 1960s. ``We now find ourselves encouraged to embrace several programmatic ideas that are returning from a quarter-century hiatus, but which have not yet been seriously tested or evaluated,\'\' Darman said in a Nov. 16 speech to the Council for Excellence in Government, a private watchdog group. The ideas are ``little more than slogans,\'\' he said. Darman\'s words infuriated conservatives. Gingrich denounced the Darman speech as ``an assault on members of his own party\'\' and demanded Wednesday night that Darman either recant or resign. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Darman and Gingrich had smoothed over their differences in a telephone conversation today, and that Darman was not withdrawing the speech. ``Director Darman and Newt had a long conversation this morning and they `re great and good friends, and there\'s no problem,\'\' said Fitzwater. Asked if Bush stood by his budget director, Fitzwater said, ``Sure.\'\' In an era when communist regimes around the world are collapsing, Bush is warming to the theme of putting power back in the hands of people and out of the grip of centralized bureaucracies. The National Affordable Housing Act - including $25 billion this year and $27 billion in fiscal 1992 - provides grants for low-income families to buy their public housing units or homes that are vacant or have been foreclosed. The measure provides $155 million for such projects this year and $885 million for 1992. It also authorizes $123 million this fiscal year and $258 million for 1992 to provide housing and services for the homeless. And, it contains a new block grant program, authorizing $1 billion for this year and $2.1 billion for 1992 to promote partnerships by federal, state and local governments with private groups and industry to meet housing needs, the White House said. Earlier Wednesday, Kemp briefed members of the Domestic Policy Council on possible initiatives under consideration for the State of the Union address and fiscal 1992 budget. Bush named Kemp on Aug. 6 to head a task force on empowerment. The ideas that Kemp and the White House conservatives are touting, including vouchers to give parents wider choice in education, inner-city enterprise zones and tenant ownership of public housing, are hardly new. In fact, former President Reagan went to bat for most of them to no avail. But their advocates are banking on rising public dissatisfaction with government to give new life to these old ideas. ``The new paradigm enables the GOP to move forward in these areas and do good, without going back to the Great Society of noble rhetoric and unintended consequences,\'\' Pinkerton said in April. For Republicans, he said, ``fighting taxes and communists has brought us about as far as it can. ... The future growth of the Republican party depends on our ability to address voters\' concerns about other important issues, such as health, child care, education and pollution.\'\'\r\n'),(1314,2,'A computer hacker broke into the 911 emergency telephone network covering nine states in the South and another intruder passed on the access data to other hackers, authorities said. Robert J. ``The Prophet\'\' Riggs, 20, of Decatur, Ga., and Craig M. ``Knight Lightning\'\' Neidorf, 19, of Chesterfield, Mo., were indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury and accused of computer crimes, said acting U.S. Attorney Ira H. Raphaelson. He said Riggs was a member of the so-called Legion of Doom hackers group, whose members are involved in numerous illegal activities. Riggs and two other alleged members also were indicted Tuesday in Atlanta and charged in other computer break-ins. The government would not say if any emergency calls were disrupted or whether other damage was done during the tampering. ``These were not teen-agers playing games,\'\' Raphaelson said. ``They are thieves, they\'re reckless and they\'re dangerous.\'\' In the Chicago case, Riggs is accused of entering Atlanta-based Bell South\'s 911 system with a computer, stealing a copy of the program that controls the system and publishing this data on a hackers\' computer bulletin board in Lockport. Neidorf is accused of transferring the data to his computer at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where he allegedly edited it for a computer hacker publication known as PHRACK. There was no immediate comment from either defendant. Directory information had no listing for Riggs, and there was a recorded message at the Neidorf residence. Neidorf\'s attorney, Art Margulis, said he had not seen the indictment so he could not comment. Raphaelson said industry specialists estimate that $3 billion to $5 billion is lost yearly to computer fraud. He said this is the fourth hacker case brought by the federal government in the past year. Bell South\'s 911 controls emergency calls to municipal police, fire, ambulance and emergency services in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. ``People who invade our telecommunications and related computer systems for profit or personal amusement create immediate and serious consequences for the public at large,\'\' said Raphaelson. He said the 911 data was valued at nearly $80,000, but would not say how a hacker could profit by stealing this data, other than by selling the information to others. Riggs, if convicted on all charges, could be sentenced to 32 years in prison and fined $222,000. Neidorf could be sentenced to 31 years and fined $122,000 on conviction. Riggs and Neidorf are charged with interstate transportation of stolen property, wire fraud and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.\r\n'),(1315,2,'Police opened fire Sunday to disperse crowds of blacks in Soweto angered by an overnight attack on a squatter camp that killed at least 10 people. At least three people were wounded during Sunday\'s confrontations, according to a witness. A total of 32 people had died in black factional fighting since Saturday, reports said. Hundreds have died since the violence in black townships near Johannesburg began less than one month ago. Residents accused Zulu supporters of the conservative Inkatha movement of launching the nighttime attack with police help. They also said masked white men took part in the assault on Soweto\'s Tladi squatter camp. The head of the South African Council of Churches, the Rev. Frank Chikane, visited the camp and said he had seen enough to know that ``police are involved in killing us.\'\' Police fought running battles with residents hurling rocks and firebombs throughout the morning near the camp in the sprawling township southwest of Johannesburg. At least three blacks were wounded when police opened fire with birdshot and live ammunition, a witness said. Earlier, police had fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the residents. The Independent South African Press Association reported a crowd of about 100 people attacked the camp on Saturday night, assaulting occupants and smashing dwellings. A total of 26 people were killed in Soweto over the weekend, police said Sunday. Residents and witnesses said 13 died at the Tladi squatter camp, but police could not confirm that figure. Six other deaths were reported Sunday in other Johannesburg-area townships, including four men found stabbed in a van at a squatter camp near Vosloorus, south of the city. Fighting between Zulu Inkatha backers and Xhosas and other blacks loyal to the African National Congress has killed nearly 600 people in black townships near Johannesburg since Aug. 12. Black leaders and others have accused police of fueling the violence by siding with the Inkatha fighters. Police and government officials have denied the charge, saying some officers may have acted improperly but that the force as a whole was impartial. Police confirmed Saturday they would investigate the allegations. A police spokesman told the government-operated South African Broadcasting Co. that witnesses would be interviewed. The leftist ANC and more conservative Inkatha blame each other for the factional fighting. Both groups oppose apartheid but differ over tactics and plans for a future South Africa. The two sides have been fighting for supremacy since 1986 in the eastern province of Natal. Those battles have resulted in about 5,000 deaths.\r\n'),(1316,2,'The stock market headed higher today, rebounding from last week\'s setback. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, down 34.95 points last week, rose 19.30 to 2,881.68 by noontime on Wall Street. Gainers outnumbered losers by about 9 to 8 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 681 up, 611 down and 513 unchanged. Analysts said traders were doing some selective ``bargain-hunting\'\' in the blue chips while they awaited a broad array of economic reports due from the government this week. Among the monthly statistics on the agenda for Wall Street are the producer price index of finished goods, due on Thursday, and the consumer price index and the nation\'s trade balance, both on Friday. If all goes as expected, brokers say, the data will support the popular view that economic growth is plodding along at a pace slow enough to permit inflation and interest rates to ease. However, they add, any surprises in the numbers could unsettle some of the optimism that built up during the rally the carried stock prices to new highs as recently as last Monday. Boeing climbed 1&rsqb; to 56~ on expectations of a big order from Korean Airlines for Boeing 747-400 jets. Elsewhere among the blue chips, International Business Machines rose 1&lsqb; to 119~; American Telephone & Telegraph &rsqb; to 42&rsqb;; General Motors | to 49&lsqb;, and DuPont &rsqb; to 39{. Microcom Inc. tumbled 8{ to 9} as the most active issue in the over-the-counter market. Late Friday the company projected a loss for the fiscal quarter ending June 30, saying major domestic distributors were overstocked with its software and modem products. The NYSE\'s composite index of all its listed common stocks added .52 to 196.57. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index slippesd .09 to 361.08. Volume on the Big Board came to 60.05 million shares at noontime, against 69.98 million at the same point Friday.\r\n'),(1317,2,'The House on Tuesday killed a move to establish procedures to review the continued detention of Cubans who entered the United States during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Under legislation defeated by a 271-144 vote, Mariel aliens denied parole would have been given the right to a hearing before an administrative law judge. The hearing would have been required within 90 days after the end of a Justice Department review, or within 90 days of the alien\'s detention by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The legislation provided that to continue detention, the department would have to prove that the detainee would pose a threat to the community or would violate reasonable conditions of release. Aliens released under the legislation would only have been sent to a halfway house or to a suitable sponsor. Mariel Cubans not released under the procedures would have had annual reviews, to determine whether circumstances justified reopening hearings. More than 125,000 Cubans came to the United States between April and October 1980, when Cuba opened its port of Mariel for citizens wishing to leave. The group included many people with criminal records and mental illness. Last year, Cuban detainees rioted at the Oakdale correctional facility in Louisiana and the federal prison in Atlanta after the United States and Cuba agreed to resume a migration agreement. At the time, there were 2,500 Cubans waiting for repatriation. In the wake of the riots, a new Justice Department review program was started for detainees designated for repatriation, and those denied parole by the INS.\r\n'),(1318,2,'China\'s guardians of Marxist ideology announced a new campaign today against pornography and Western liberalism and said they would press on with an anti-crime drive in which hundreds have been executed. The announcements, made in headlines in the Communist Party newspaper, the People\'s Daily, contradicted widespread expectations that the party would relax its tight social controls after the Asian Games ended Oct. 7 in Beijing. Hong Kong newspapers, many of which have close ties to Chinese officials, had predicted that more participants in last year\'s failed democracy movement would be released from jail if the games went off smoothly. But Zhou Chengkui, spokesman for the National People\'s Congress, said on Monday he had no word of forthcoming releases. Today\'s announcements further indicated the hard-liners who have dominated Chinese politics since June 1989 have no intention of relaxing their hold. Their speeches said that China\'s current stability is fragile and called for vigilence against alleged anti-party forces. ``At present, our country is politically, economically and socially stable,\'\' Qiao Shi, the party official in charge of police matters, said in giving the order to continue China\'s 6-month-old crackdown on crime. ``But we must see clearly that the relatively smooth public order of these few months was achieved through the might of the (crackdown on crime),\'\' he said. ``In ideology and in work, we cannot relax one whit.\'\' The international human rights group Amnesty International said last month that more than 720 people were given death sentences in China from January through mid-August, including more than 350 in June and July alone. Official newspapers have reported thousands of arrests since the anti-crime campaign began in May, causing cities to expand their police forces and in some cases form civilian patrols. The party also held an anti-pornography campaign for about six months beginning in June 1989, when the army crushed a student-led movement for democratic reforms. Not only pornographic but pro-democratic publications were seized and burned. Liu Zhongde, who headed that drive, said a new campaign to last through next spring will clean up remaining ``spiritual pollution and cultural garbage.\'\' The People\'s Daily quoted him as saying that 12 percent of the country\'s newspapers, 13 percent of its social science periodicals and more than 7 percent of its publishing houses had been closed since June 1989. He said 32 million books and magazines were destroyed and nearly 80,000 people were convicted for involvement in illegal publising activity. ``This is still just a good beginning,\'\' he said. ``Some obscene publications that have been explicitly banned have reappeared in new form. Illegal publishing activities have reared their heads.\'\' He blamed this on ``the bourgeois liberal tide,\'\' the party\'s phrase for Western-style democratic ideas such as free speech and multiparty rule. ``People who support bourgeois liberalism ... advocate complete Westernization,\'\' he said. ``But complete Westernization necessarily opens the door to corrupt and degenerate capitalist things, and thus obscene things are spread.\'\'\r\n'),(1319,2,'The Metropolitan Opera filed a lawsuit seeking to ring down the curtain on a bebop, jazz band that calls itself the ``Metropolitan Bopera House.\'\' In its trademark infringement suit against the jazz quintet, the Met claimed the ``virtually identical\'\' name ``is likely to cause confusion, deception, mistake.\'\' But John Marshall, one of the founding members of the Metropolitan Bopera House, called Tuesday\'s lawsuit ``pretty silly, because we\'re no threat to them in any way. After all we\'re playing different kinds of music.\'\' Bebop is a form of improvisational swing popularized by Charlie ``Bird\'\' Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, said Marshall. Henry W. Lauterstein, general counsel for the Met, declined to comment further, saying he\'d let court papers call the tune. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, seeks a restraining order against Metropolitan Bopera House to keep them ``from unfairly competing\'\' with the Met. ``After playing smoke-filled dates and struggling to assert itself in the rough jazz business, it is difficult for our group to see how we could possibly threaten the opera, which seems to feel it has exclusive rights to the word `metropolitan,\'\'\' said Marshall, a 35-year-old trumpeter from Brooklyn. The opera house also wants the Bopera House to turn over all their records, labels, advertising _ and anything else with the offending name _ for destruction. According to the lawsuit, the Metropolitan Opera has been the Metropolitan Opera since 1883 and even registered that name and ``Met\'\' as trademarks. The Met also sought an accounting of Metropolitan Bopera House\'s profits and unspecified damages for alleged ``willful and wanton, unfair competition and unfair business practices.\'\' The lawsuit claimed the boppers ``obviously intended to connote a connection or association\'\' with the Met and were stealing ``its name, good will and reputation.\'\' Not so, said Marshall, noting that his band, founded 100 years after the Met, took its moniker from a nickname for the Royal Roost, a popular Manhattan jazz club of the 1940s.\r\n'),(1320,2,'Former Navy Secretary James H. Webb says he learned last fall of a massive fraud investigation and deliberately kept Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci in the dark, figuring the FBI would tell him when it wanted to. Webb, in a telephone interview Tuesday, also said he was told from the start that former Navy official Melvyn R. Paisley was a ``central figure\'\' in the probe and that a member of his headquarters staff was under scrutiny. Webb said he wasn\'t told and didn\'t ask the identity of the official on his staff under investigation. FBI search warrants suggest the Navy official is James Gaines, the deputy assistant secretary for acquisition management. Webb said he never attempted to discuss the matter with Carlucci because ``that wasn\'t my job.\'\' ``This was a very close-hold report involving an investigation being conducted by the FBI with the NIS (Naval Investigative Service) cooperating, not the Department of Defense,\'\' he said. ``My view was that if the FBI wanted to tell Carlucci, they would tell him. How should I know whether they wanted to tell him? Why should I get tangled up in all that?\'\' Pentagon spokesmen have said Carlucci did not learn of the probe until June 13, the day before FBI agents began executing search warrants at the Pentagon and elsewhere around the country. The former Navy chief added he was originally told the investigation would probably be completed by last Christmas, ``but it kept getting delayed because the net kept expanding.\'\' Webb, a Vietnam War hero, lawyer, novelist and former assistant defense secretary, became the secretary of the Navy in April 1987 after the resignation of John F. Lehman Jr., who had held the post for six years. Paisley was an assistant secretary of the Navy and one of Lehman\'s top aides. He left at the same time Lehman did and established a defense consulting business. ``I was, in fact, briefed about this last fall,\'\' Webb said. ``And I was then periodically updated on it by the chief of the Naval Investigative Service. ``I was told that with respect to the Navy, Paisley was the central figure. I was also told an individual still on my staff was under investigation.\'\' After the briefing, Webb said, he did two things. ``I told them I didn\'t want to know who it was on my staff, but please try to hurry up and get the investigation done if that was the case,\'\' Webb said. ``I didn\'t like the idea of someone committing felonies when I\'m trying to reorganize (with new people). ``And I also asked the NIS to communicate to the FBI my concern that if they were investigating Paisley, it be for substantive matters because of Paisley\'s relationship with Lehman. I didn\'t want it to appear to be a witch hunt.\'\' According to the Justice Department, the NIS began the current investigation two years ago and then called in the FBI. Justice officials say the inquiry centers on allegations that Pentagon executives took bribes from private military consultants who were seeking classified contract information for defense contractors. Webb said his knowledge of details of the investigation always was limited. Asked if he was told there were other ``central figures\'\' working for other armed services or on the Pentagon staff, Webb replied, ``No comment.\'\' Webb also said that long before he knew of the investigation, he canceled a consulting contract between Paisley and the Navy that allowed Paisley to keep his security clearance for super-secret ``black\'\' program information. The consulting arrangement was established shortly before Webb took over as Navy secretary. Webb said he canceled it as soon as he learned of its existence, less than a week after assuming office. ``The arrangement kind of bothered me, the access to black information (for a consultant),\'\' Webb said.\r\n'),(1321,2,'President Bush says a look at history will back up his suggestion that Saddam Hussein is a barbarian surpassing Adolf Hitler, but experts on the Nazi era disagree with him. ``We don\'t see the kind of atrocities being committed in Kuwait and Iraq that would match those of Nazi Germany,\'\' said Richard Breitman, a professor of history at American University and a specialist in the Hitler era. ``No one yet, and I hope no one ever will, match up to the systematized brutalities and racist policies that Adolf Hitler committed,\'\' said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. The center is devoted to the study of the Nazi Holocaust, in which an estimated 6 million Jews were killed, and its contemporary implications. Bush, speaking at a Republican rally in Mashpee, Mass., Thursday, said Saddam\'s Iraqi invaders ``have committed outrageous acts of barbarism. Brutality - I don\'t believe that Adolf Hitler ever participated in anything of that nature.\'\' Later, at a news conference in Orlando, Fla., Bush said, ``I don\'t think I am overstating it. I know I am not overstating the feelings I have about it. ... I think the American people are as outraged as I am about the treatment of the people in our embassy, for example, and I think it is important that they know my concerns on this subject.\'\' ``I was told that Hitler did not stake people out against military targets,\'\' the president said. ``He did respect the legitimacy of the embassies, so there are some differences.\'\' He added, ``I see many similarities between the Iraqi behavior in Kuwait and the way the Death\'s Head regiments behaved in Poland. Go back and take a look at the history and you can see why I\'m as concerned as I am.\'\' \'\' The Death\'s Head units were notorious blackshirted SS troops that began as Hitler\'s personal bodyguard. They were blamed for many atrocities during the German invasion of Poland. Breitman said many of the specific points Bush made were correct and could make Saddam appear worse than Hitler in some respects, ``but I don\'t think the overall record would show that to be the case.\'\' He said that at the outbreak of World War II the Nazis interned foreign diplomats in conditions ``that were not comfortable, but were nothing like what we are seeing in Kuwait and Iraq.\'\' These diplomats were eventually exchanged for German diplomats in Allied custody, Breitman said. He said he was not aware that the Nazis ever took hostages to potential military targets to use them as human shields as Saddam has done. Cooper, however, said Bush was ``absolutely wrong\'\' on the point. ``Look at the millions of people of all nationalities who were forced into slave labor factories in Germany and many of them got blown away by the Allied bombing missions,\'\' he said. Breitman said Hitler is not known to have visited any of the Nazi death camps, but ``that does not mean he was not involved.\'\' He also said the activities of the Death\'s Head units were ``only the tip of the iceberg in terms of brutality in Poland\'\' by the German invaders. The historian said he was not defending Saddam. He said the Iraqi leader has committed crimes ``that give the idea of a Nuremberg-type trial a certain legitimacy to raise.\'\' Administration sources have said that such a trial, along the lines of the war crimes trials held in Nuremberg, Germany, after World War II, is a possibility. At the Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Cooper said, ``Saddam Hussein has a list of crimes that I don\'t think has to be compared with anybody in order for the people of America to understand how serious a threat he represents.\'\' ``But let\'s also keep this thing in some sort of perspective,\'\' he said. ``And to say that he outstrips Adolf Hitler, I just think it\'s either a slip of the tongue or a speech writer got carried away.\'\' Other Jewish leaders generally agreed. David Harris, executive vice president of the American Jewish Committee, said, ``Both men, each in his own way, represents an incarnation of evil. But to try and suggest that Saddam Hussein is a man of even greater evil than Adolf Hitler to me doesn\'t add to the discussion.\'\' Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B\'nai B\'rith, called Bush\'s remark ``an unfortunate exaggeration that could hurt the president\'s credibility at a time when it is very important that he remain credible.\'\' ``Saddam Hussein is writing his own chapter of barbarism,\'\' Foxman said. ``It\'s the Saddam Hussein chapter and one need not compare or exaggerate.\'\'\r\n'),(1322,2,'It\'s a tough campaign for president, barbed with Polish humor, between the earthy shipyard worker who founded Solidarity and the somber, laconic intellectual he chose as prime minister. What do Poles think of the contest between Lech Walesa and Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki in their first popular vote for the presidency? Some call it Cham vs. Hamlet. Cham, pronounced ``ham,\'\' is Polish for bumpkin. Others have asked: Will Mazowiecki declare his candidacy before or after the election? Then there\'s the story of a problem Walesa had when he wanted to reserve a burial site in Jerusalem next to Jesus Christ. He found the cost was $150,000, it goes, and said to his top aide: ``I don\'t know, Krzysiek. Is it worth it for only three days?\'\' The duel between Eastern Europe\'s first non-Communist head of government and the man who gave him the job has rekindled interest in politics after months of hand-wringing by commentators over post-Communist apathy. Nearly all conversations turn sooner or later to the question of which one will occupy Belweder Palace, seat of Polish presidents. A man was even killed in a drunken dispute with his son-in-law over who would be the better president, the state news agency reported. Poland held parliamentary elections in June 1989 that were largely free and democratic local elections in May, but this is the first real contest because Solidarity candidates swept the earlier votes. Surveys indicate the two former Solidarity allies are running about even. Other candidates have ventured into the ring, including Roman Bartoszcze of the Peasant Party and Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz of the Social Democrats, formerly the Communists, but only Walesa and Mazowiecki are given a real chance. If neither gets 50 percent of the votes Nov. 25, a runoff will be held Dec. 9. Part of the fascination stems from their contrasting styles. Walesa is electric, speaking rapidly, seeming to bob and weave through questions thrown at him from the crowd. Mazowiecki is ``grey on grey\'\' in the words of one newspaper, shy and ponderous in speech but exuding character and moral authority. Walesa declared early and began an aggressive campaign immediately with meetings at factories, where he is strong, and with academics, Mazowiecki\'s turf. In the first three weeks of October, Walesa visited nine cities, saw more than 100,000 people and was seen by millions more on television. Local Solidarity chapters organize his Western-style rallies, held outdoors or in large arenas with banners, brass bands and deafening loudspeakers. Mazowiecki made his first campaign appearance Oct. 14, two weeks after Walesa, in the Krakow Philharmonic Hall, which seats only 800 people. Instead of direct questions from the crowd, he took written ones that were rephrased by his campaign spokesman. The prime minister seems hesitant about contact with strangers. Hundreds of people waited outside the hall in Krakow for two hours and Mazowiecki rewarded them with only a few minutes on the balcony, his stilted words of thanks barely audible through a bullhorn. His dedication to his job, evident in his tired, careworn appearance, earns sympathy even from people who say they will vote for Walesa. After becoming prime minister in August 1989, Mazowiecki set a considered, pragmatic course that won respect abroad and gave Poles a sense of security against the sudden shocks of revolutionary change. To many, however, Mazowiecki\'s government has seemed to drag its feet, allowing former secret police to destroy records and keeping Communist ministers in the government half a year after the party dissolved. In his campaign, Walesa advocates faster change and has been quoted as intending to use a ``sharp axe\'\' to chop away vestiges of the old system. He and Mazowiecki also appear to disagree about policy toward the Communist leadership. When he took office, the prime minister spoke of drawing a line between present and past, but Walesa has said he wants to ``settle accounts\'\' with those who have injured Poland or stolen from it. If Walesa becomes president, Mazowiecki says, he will join the opposition. Walesa replies that he already has five other candidates for prime minister. Critics accuse Walesa of currying favor with the mob, promising easy solutions he cannot deliver and becoming a demagogue who could abuse the still-fragile democracy and frighten off Western investors. ``I\'ll vote for Mazowiecki because, under his presidency, I can sleep peacefully,\'\' Adam Michnik, a former Walesa adviser, told a rally. ``If someone knocks at my door at 5 in the morning, it can only be the milkman.\'\' ``Walesa is as suitable to be president as I am to be a radio announcer,\'\' Michnik, now editor of Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland\'s leading daily newspaper, said in a recent broadcast. Michnik spoke with his usual stutter. Walesa wished him luck in radio.\r\n'),(1323,2,'American diplomats in Panama are facing a variety of real and potential problems brought on by the Reagan administration\'s decision to have no dealings with that country\'s military-dominated government, U.S. officials say. In addition, harassment of American servicemen is on the increase, prompting U.S. military officials to take precautionary measures. Panamanian officials respond that troublemakers among U.S. military personnel pose daily headaches for Panamanian authorities. The State Department\'s constraints on U.S. envoys are such that they are prohibited from carrying out even simple tasks, such as renewing their license plates or their driver\'s licenses. As a result, many diplomats have been forced to rent cars rather than run the risk of driving with expired plates. Some make their rounds with expired driver\'s licenses, worried what local authorities might do if they catch them in a traffic violation or an accident, the officials said. The diplomats lack the documents entitling them to diplomatic immunity. Thus, they are subject to imprisonment if found guilty of a legal infraction. According to U.S. officials, there is concern that agents of Panamanian leader Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega might stage an ``accident\'\' in which an American diplomat might be subject to prosecution. The diplomats have been in this unusual position since last February, when the Reagan administration refused to recognize the de facto government that took office after the ouster of President Eric Arturo Delvalle. Delvalle was deposed after his abortive attempt to fire Noriega, commander of Panama\'s Defense Forces. Noriega has been indicted on drug smuggling charges by two Florida grand juries. By withholding recognition from the Noriega-led government which assumed power after Delvalle\'s ouster, the administration hoped to force its ouster and to lay the groundwork for the restoration of democratic rule. There were confident predictions in Washington six months ago that Noriega soon would be forced to surrender power but, with key elements of the Defense Forces supporting him, he has been able to maintain his position despite widespread popular opposition. Meanwhile, U.S. diplomats and others in Panama have been forced to make difficult adjustments. There have been increased incidents of harassment of American servicemen but U.S. officials do not believe the actions represent deliberate harassment by the Panamanian government. Earlier this week, Panama\'s Defense Forces issued a statement denying a published report that American servicemen are being singled out for harassment. The statement said U.S. troops cause daily problems for Panamanian authorities, including fights, mistreatment of women, venereal disease, shooting in public places and refusing to pay bar and restaurant tabs. According to U.S. officials, the most serious incident involved the Panamanian wife of an American serviceman. The officials said she was raped by two Panamanians who were wearing Defense Force uniforms. There also have been reports of beatings and abductions of U.S. military personnel. Cynthia Farrell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy, said American residents of Panama, including businessmen and embassy personnel, have reported no increase in harassment. But an official at the U.S. Southern Command in Panama, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 240 cases of harassment of U.S. servicemen had been reported between February and August of this year. In response, the Pentagon has been sending some servicemen back to the United States or moving them to safer locations in Panama. The Southern Command official said an increasing number of Panamanian policemen have been attempting to bribe U.S. servicemen stopped for traffic violations. But he noted that the police have not been getting paid regularly because the government has been short of cash since the start of the year. In another example of harassment, the Defense Forces recently refused to allow U.S. military personnel to pick up mail at Panama\'s international airport for three days, the official said.\r\n'),(1324,2,'A jury on Thursday convicted former U.S. Rep. Sam Steiger of theft by extortion for threatening a parole board member to get his vote on a personnel matter while serving in the Evan Mecham administration. ``Any time you go to court you can expect a guilty verdict, but it\'s difficult to believe,\'\' Steiger said in the courtroom moments after the jury returned its verdict. Steiger, who was a top aide to the now-ousted Republican governor, was accused of threatening Ron Johnson, a member of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. Steiger allegedly threatened to withhold permission for Johnson to work as a part-time Tempe justice of the peace and to remove him from the board unless he voted to retain as executive director Patricia Costello, a Mecham appointee. Judge Ronald Reinstein of Maricopa County Superior Court scheduled a May 6 sentencing for the 59-year-old Steiger, who faces up to five years in prison. Asked whether the verdict would be appealed, defense attorney Thomas Karas said, ``We\'ll take it one step at a time.\'\' Steiger said, ``That\'s up to counsel.\'\' Jury foreman Greg Jones, a fire captain in suburban Mesa, said the deciding factor behind the verdict was ``the tapes of the phone call between Steiger and Johnson.\'\' Johnson called Steiger at home from the office of the state attorney general, who taped the call. During testimony Monday, Steiger denied that he threatened Johnson or told him how he should vote. But the state alleged that Steiger followed up on the alleged threat in a letter and a telephone conversation after Johnson voted with the board majority to seek Ms. Costello\'s resignation. The board voted 4-3 that Ms. Costello should step down because of low staff morale. Steiger, a former five-term congressman, testified that he did suggest that Johnson should back Ms. Costello but denied that he tried to ``steal\'\' Johnson\'s vote by threatening his job. Karas had asked Reinstein to declare a mistrial, contending the conviction of Mecham at his state Senate impeachment trial Monday might prejudice jurors against Steiger. However, Reinstein ruled that great care had been taken to select unbiased jurors. Steiger gave up his 3rd Congressional District seat in 1976 to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as a Republican.\r\n'),(1325,2,'The New York Stock Exchange is requiring members to submit daily reports of their program trades, a move designed to help the exchange analyze market volatility. Under the new rule, NYSE members and member firms must submit a log of program trades made for customers or for their own accounts, including trades executed in other markets, by the close of the second business day following the trades, the exchange said in a statement Tuesday. Members are not required, however, to identify customers for whom program trades were executed.\r\n'),(1326,2,'Egypt\'s foreign minister left for Washington early Wednesday seeking a way to resolve differences by Israel and the PLO that continue to block Middle East peace talks. The unexpected trip by Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel-Meguid comes after two visits to Cairo in a week by Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman. Abdel-Meguid told reporters at Cairo International Airport he is carrying a message to President Bush from President Hosni Mubarak, who has been trying to start a dialogue between Arafat\'s organization and Israel. He did not elaborate except to say he would exchange views with U.S. officials on the situation in the Middle East. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday that Abdel-Meguid and other senior officials, including Osama el-Baz, director of Mubarak\'s political office, ``are going to try and push forward Middle East peace efforts\'\' with U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III. Israel has repeatedly declined to meet with the PLO leadership, saying it is an organization bent on destroying the Jewish homeland.\r\n'),(1327,2,'The United States has suspended military and economic talks with Qatar to protest the Persian Gulf sheikdom\'s unauthorized acquisition of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, U.S. diplomats said Wednesday. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy said the suspension would remain in place until Qatar returns the missiles to the United States. ``What we have done is to place on hold a number of agreements that were under consideration,\'\' Murphy told the House subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East. ``We consider it very much in the interests of developing the solid relationship with Qatar that those missiles be returned soonest. And we\'ve made that very clear,\'\' he added. Murphy himself made an official protest when he visited the Qatari capital of Doha last month. Another official, speaking on condition he not be named, said Qatar had been seeking several military and economic agreements with the United States, including the purchase of weapons. ``We told them everything is frozen,\'\' he added. ``Relations are now correct but cool.\'\' The United States does not have any defense cooperation with Qatar but considers the country important as a member of the pro-Western Gulf Cooperation Council which includes Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. U.S. officials wants to get the Stingers back in order to see their serial numbers and determine where Qatar got them. The United States first learned of the Stingers\' presence in Qatar last March, when an embassy official saw one of the rockets in television footage of a military parade. U.S. officials say they do not know how many of the shoulder-fired rockets Qatar has. They have speculated that Qatar was given the Stingers by Iran, which in turn captured them from the U.S.-supplied Afghan rebels fighting against the Soviet occupation of their country. Other officials say Qatar may have bought the missiles on the black market, although that possibility is less likely. Strict controls apply to the sale of the Stingers, which are considered of great value to terrorists because they are portable and highly accurate. In response to questioning, Murphy said the United States was not considering recalling its ambassador to Qatar who heads a tiny mission of five Americans. Such a move would not be in the interests of maintaining relations with the pro-Western oil state, Murphy said. The ambassador ``is the only one with access to decision makers\'\' there, he added. Qatar contends it needs the missiles for self-defense and has rejected any attempts by U.S. officials to even see them.\r\n'),(1328,2,'The body of a man found shot four times in the head has been identified as that of a former Texas schoolteacher wanted on kidnapping and drug smuggling charges, police say. Juan Francisco ``Frank\'\' Garcia, 38, his head wrapped in a gauze bandage and his hands tied behind his back, was found dead in the back seat of an abandoned car shortly after midnight Saturday, said Hernan Guajardo, state judicial police director. Guajardo said the body was identified through fingerprints sent from federal authorities in Texas. The body was found by municipal police in Guadalupe, a suburb of Monterrey. In a news conference Monday, Guajardo described Garcia as a ``person dedicated to narcotics trafficking on a grand scale.\'\' He said Garcia had been sought in the United States since the early 1980s. Garcia taught elementary history in the Donna Independent School District for two years in the early 1970s. He also taught migrant students in Edinburg, Texas, according to records kept by the Edinburg Daily Review newspaper. Garcia failed to appear in Hidalgo County Court in Edinburg in 1984 on a charge of kidnapping. The case involved the abduction of a South Texas couple taken to Dallas and tortured in an attempt to find more than $500,000 in gold coins Garcia believed had been taken from him, according to the Daily Review. Garcia also is wanted on a federal indictment in Houston in 1985 charging him with involvement in a narcotics smuggling ring. That so-called ``Cash Crop\'\' indictment alleged that Garcia and 43 other people were involved in smuggling about 250,000 pounds of marijuana from Mexico into the United States.\r\n'),(1329,2,'A Philippine Airlines jetliner carrying 303 passengers veered onto the grass from a taxiway today after making a landing at Hong Kong Airport, the government said. It said no one was injured. The Boeing 747 left the taxiway because of a mechanical problem, the government said in a statement. It did not elaborate. The plane landed at 3:08 p.m. after a flight from Manila. The jetliner later was towed away by airport workers, the government statement said. No other details were immediately available.\r\n'),(1330,2,'A half dozen geese flew into the engine of a Europe-bound Pan Am jumbo jet Saturday, forcing the pilot to shut it down and return to Kennedy International Airport on the three remaining engines, authorities said. The Boeing 747 landed safely and passengers were transferred to another plane for the flight to London and Frankfurt, Pan Am spokeswoman Pamela Hanlon said. Flight 100 had taken off at 9:56 a.m. with 387 passengers and 16 crew members aboard. While it was still in its takeoff flight pattern, it ran into the flock of geese, the Federal Aviation Administration said. ``As soon as the captain was aware that there was some obstruction of the engine, he shut it down,\'\' Ms. Hanlon said. ``It\'s no big deal,\'\' said Stan Nowak, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey official. ``A 747 is capable of flying on one engine if it had to.\'\' He said the plane had to go out over the Atlantic Ocean to dump some fuel before it could return to the airport. ``With a full fuel load, a plane is too heavy to land on its gear. That\'s the way they are designed. They can take off heavier than they can land,\'\' Nowak said. The pilot had asked for fire and medical equipment to stand by a precautionary measure but none was needed, Nowak said.\r\n'),(1331,2,'The following are the top record hits and leading popular compact disks as they appear in next week\'s issue of Billboard magazine. Copyright 1990, Billboard Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission.\r\n'),(1332,2,'A federal administrative judge ruled Thursday that stiff landing fees aimed at keeping smaller aircraft out of Boston\'s Logan Airport violate federal aviation law because they are discriminatory and unfair. A final decision on how to deal with the fee structure imposed last summer by the Massachusetts Port Authority rests with the Transportation Department, to whom administrative law judge Burton S. Kolko made his recommendations. The case has been seen within the aviation industry as a test over how much power the federal government intends to allow local officials and airport operators in dealing with air traffic congestion. A DOT spokesman said the department will decide by Dec. 17 whether to uphold Kolko\'s decision or come down with an alternative finding on the Boston airport fees, which have raised a storm of protests among private and business pilots and in the commuter airline industry. Kolko in his decision said the Logan fees ``are lacking in economic justification ... not fair and reasonable (and) are unjustly discriminatory\'\' toward private aircraft and smaller commuter planes. The judge said that Massport officials acted in violation of federal aviation laws and he concluded that the Transportation Department has legal grounds on which to take pre-emptive action to have the fees revoked. Massport officials said that since the fee structure has been in place, Logan has handled more passengers with fewer delays. ``It is unsettling then, that all the benefits ... could be dismantled if DOT accepts the recommendations issued today,\'\' the company said. The Transportation Department announced last summer that it planned to closely examine the so-called ``Pace Program\'\' enacted at Logan to curtail the volume of air traffic in and out of the busy Boston airport. After loud protests from private pilots and some commuter airlines, Congress included in its DOT appropriations legislation earlier this year a provision ordering the department to stop airport construction money for Logan if it concludes the fees violate aviation law and are not rescinded. Massport approved the higher landing fees for small aircraft last March, saying Logan\'s capacity ``is a finite resource, which must be managed wisely and efficiently in order to keep people moving with a minimum of delay.\'\' The airport\'s operators said they wanted to use Logan\'s limited capacity for airliner traffic and not private aircraft, maintaining that a large jetliner with up to 400 people aboard ``deserves a higher priority than a Cessna with two people on board.\'\' The new fee structure went into effect in July after a U.S. district judge ruled that the fees were not discriminatory. The higher fees have affected both private pilots and commuter airlines. The government said some commuter services were discontinued to Logan after the new fees went into effect, but that most commuters just passed the higher costs on to air travelers. While the conclusion Thursday by Kolko is little more than a recommendation to senior department officials on whether to take administrative action, it was hailed by private pilot groups and other critics of the Logan fees. John Baker, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, called the law judge\'s decision ``well reasoned\'\' and said, ``It makes it clear once and for all this country has a national aviation system that must be regulated by appropriate federal authority.\'\' Jonathan Howe, head of the National Business Aircraft Association, said his group now ``looks forward to .. the final determination\'\' on the Massport fees by Deputy Secretary Mimi Dawson next month. ``The entire aviation community was gratified\'\' by Kolko\'s findings, said Edward W. Stimpson, president of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, the trade group that represents builders of small aircraft.\r\n'),(1333,2,'A federal judge sharply criticized Iran-Contra prosecutors on Thursday for charging a former CIA station chief in the nation\'s capital with committing crimes across the Potomac River in Virginia. U.S. District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr. questioned a proposal by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh to dismiss all the charges against Joseph F. Fernandez so prosecutors could seek a new indictment from a federal grand jury in nearby Alexandria, Va. ``I don\'t think it\'s a simple matter of I\'ll dismiss it and let you go to Virginia and re-indict it,\'\' Robinson told Laurence Shtasel, an associate independent counsel. The judge did not indicate how he would rule on Walsh\'s request, which was made in a response to a defense motion to dismiss four of the indictment\'s five counts on the ground those alleged offenses occurred at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. instead of in Washington. Fernandez, who used the pseudonym Tomas Castillo when he was the CIA\'s station chief in Costa Rica, is accused of conspiring with former National Security Council aide Oliver L. North to illegally ship arms to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. Robinson said he found no basis for dismissing that count, since the alleged conspiracy took place both in Washington and elsewhere. But the judge sharply questioned the prosecution decision to indict Fernandez, 51, in Washington on four counts of making false statements in Virginia to CIA superiors and to a presidential commission that investigated the Iran-Contra affair. Robinson also lectured the prosecutors about fairness saying: ``There has to be a sense of justice in the process as well as the outcome, otherwise public confidence in the system is destroyed.\'\' Laurence Shtasel, an associate independent counsel, said prosecutors had not misled the grand jury about the venue _ or location _ of the four alleged crimes, and had advised the panel that Fernandez could waive his right to be tried in Virginia. The grand jury included the four Virginia charges because they were related to the conspiracy, Shtasel said. ``That doesn\'t give it any right to indict when the venue of the case is not here,\'\' Robinson said. ``It\'s the government\'s responsibility to advise the grand jury what it can or cannot do under the law.\'\' Defense attorney Thomas E. Wilson argued that Walsh should be barred from bringing the charges anew in Virginia, saying prosecutors ``were trifling with the process.\'\' ``They intentionally pursued an indictment where they knew there was not even a colorable basis of venue on four of five counts,\'\' Wilson said. ``The prosecutors in this case are not beleaguered, overworked assistant U.S. attorneys,\'\' Wilson said. Walsh ``assembled the prosecutorial equivalent of a Roman legion: 29 lawyers, 33 FBI agents, 11 IRS agents, four Customs agents.\'\' ``They are trifling with the process _ they ought to be stuck with the consequences,\'\' Wilson said. But Robinson said he ``didn\'t know any basis for dismissing\'\' the conspiracy charge against Fernandez. ``The nub of the case is the conspiracy indictment, any way you look at it, everything else is superfluous really,\'\' the judge told Shtasel. But he said allowing Walsh to try Fernandez in Washington on the conspiracy count and obtain another indictment in Virginia ``places an intolerable burden on a single defendant.\'\'\r\n'),(1334,2,'A ``human bomb\'\' attack, similar to last month\'s IRA bombing which killed seven people, failed when the enormous bomb fizzled, police said Friday. No one immediately claimed responsibility for Thursday night\'s failed attack but a spokesman for the Royal Ulster Constabular said the Irish Republican Army was suspected. The RUC spokesman said armed, masked men kidnapped a man from his home near Newtown Butler and ordered him to drive a truck containing a 3,500-pound bomb to an army checkpoint at Annaghmartin. The gang tied up the man\'s elderly parents and locked them in a bathroom while the man was driven near the checkpoint, 56 miles southwest of Belfast. The man was told to deliver the bomb, which they said had a five-minute timer, police said. The man drove the red pickup to the checkpoint, jumped out and shouted a warning. A short time later there was a small explosion, which was believed to have been caused by the detonator going off, police said. Army bomb experts defused the bomb, one of the largest ever found in Northern Ireland, police said. The army said there was only minimal damage and no one was injured. On Oct. 24, the IRA staged three human bomb attacks which killed six soldiers and a civilian, who drove one of the bombs to the army targets. The IRA is fighting British rule in Northern Ireland. It wants to unite the predominantly Protestant province with the 95 percent Catholic Republic of Ireland, under socialist rule.\r\n'),(1335,2,'Actor Sean Penn says being married to a star like Madonna is a strain, but that recent reports the couple was close to divorce were created by the press. Penn discussed his marriage in a story published in Sunday\'s Chicago Tribune, which said it was the first interview with filmdom\'s bad boy since he was jailed for 32 days after striking a movie extra. Penn, 27, vowed to ``refocus\'\' himself to avoid outbursts. He said reports of his marital problems with Madonna, 29, stem from her fans\' possessiveness of her and their view of him as less-than-ideal marriage material. ``She belonged to them, to the public,\'\' Penn said. ``And if anybody took her, I think they thought it should have been someone more acceptable, like Donald Trump.\'\' Madonna filed divorce papers in Santa Monica, Calif., on Dec. 4, citing irreconcilable differences. Two weeks later, she asked to withdraw the petition and the court granted the request the same day, court records show. No reason was given in the court papers for her change of heart. But Penn said the divorce story ``was more People magazine than reality. My attitude with the press right now is that I hope they\'ve had their share of me. They\'ve been very busy trying to find or make dirt. I\'d like to get back to acting.\'\'\r\n'),(1336,2,'For almost half a century, being prepared for World War III has been the military\'s mission and a piston driving the American economy. Moscow and Washington, East and West, stood toe-to-toe along the Iron Curtain. It took a million soldiers, 12,000 strategic nuclear warheads and a growing defense budget to keep the peace in Europe. Inside a year, the world changed. ``For eons we\'ve been saying, `The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming,\'\'\' says Rep. Ronald Dellums, D-Calif. ``Well they haven\'t come, and they aren\'t coming.\'\' Defense Secretary Richard Cheney told Congress: ``We are now on the verge of winning one of the greatest victories in the history of the world without a shot ever being fired.\'\' Three arms treaties are being negotiated for the signatures of Presidents Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Once they are settled _ reducing the stockpiles of chemical weapons, conventional forces in Europe and long-range nuclear missiles _ the American military will be transformed in size and purpose. Yet with the outbreak of peace, as Gov. Richard Celeste of Ohio notes, ``there can be a dark side.\'\' Peace is not a completely comforting prospect for everyone: _Not for the 1,600 people who work in St. Louis at the Army Troop Support Command, distributor of uniforms, tents and other military supplies. The Pentagon wants to close it. _Not for the 101,000 who work for General Dynamics Corp., maker of tanks, submarines, jets and missiles in plants from Florida to California. The No. 2 defense contractor has become a symbol of the end-of-the-Cold War malady. Public relations executive Chris Schildz discourages reporters seeking interviews on how the company is going to handle it. _Not for thousands upon thousands of GIs who now must confront something that American soldiers don\'t usually worry about _ job security. Today\'s troops aren\'t draftees like those let go after World War II or the Korean War or Vietnam. They are volunteers. Many chose the service as a career. Demobilization, for them, is as rude a slap as a layoff for a factory worker. ``We are very well aware of the fact that this is the first time the United States of America has ever taken apart an army made up of all volunteers,\'\' says Lt. Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, the Army\'s deputy chief of staff for operations and plans. He says it\'s too early to estimate how many soldiers will be let go. _Not for the 13,000 people in and around Lima, Ohio, who owe their jobs to the Army Tank Plant. It makes the M-1 Abrams tank, a 60-ton monster deemed too muscular for the lighter, more mobile Army the Pentagon envisions for the 1990s. The plant is scheduled to close in 1993. Don Downhour, a Lima resident who doesn\'t work at the plant, says he\'s sympathetic to the plight of the tank builders, but he sees another side. ``We don\'t need tanks if we\'re going to have peace,\'\' he muses. ``And that\'s what we\'ve been praying for.\'\' Harry O\'Brien, shop steward at the Saco Defense plant in Saco, Maine, whose mainstay is the Mk-19 grenade launcher, says his co-workers are worried by the defense cutbacks. ``Everybody is saying, `Gee, what happens if we get closed down?\',\'\' he says The diminishing of the 45-year-old threat of global war between the two superpowers is worrisome in other places, too: _In President Bush\'s White House. No sooner had Bush submitted his budget to Congress, calling for a slight drop in Pentagon spending next year, than he took to the road to sell Americans on a single idea: Cutting back too fast, too far is dangerous folly. _At the Pentagon, where Cheney has been carrying the Bush message to Capitol Hill. He is a man in the middle _ knowing reductions will be forced by Congress, but needing to protect Bush\'s cautious approach and the strategic concerns of the armed forces. _In Congress, where claimants for the ``peace dividend\'\' _ those who want to retire some national debt; or cut Social Security taxes; or address the problems of the homeless and ill-housed, hungry and poor; or repair decaying bridges, roads and sewage systems; or fix America\'s education system; or ease the medical-cost burden of the elderly _ are lining up for a piece of the pie. A pie that Bush says doesn\'t exist. _And again in Congress, where some foresee severe economic upheavals if defense plants and bases close suddenly and thousands of workers are left in the cold. The trouble, then, is figuring out just how much defense to drop, and where. If the Cold War is over, what is the justification for spending 25 cents of every federal dollar on defense _ half of which goes to deterring a Soviet invasion of Europe now deemed less likely than a blue moon? From the fall of the Berlin Wall in November to the Soviet Communist Party\'s historic decision Feb. 7 to give up its power monopoly, events in the East bloc have eroded the very underpinnings of Western strategic thinking. Indeed, the East European states no longer are a ``bloc\'\' in the traditional sense. In this new world order, what will the United States do with its military might? Fight terrorists? Play ``policeman\'\' in Third World hot spots? Revert to the isolationism so dreaded by U.S. allies in Europe and Asia? One answer may be in joining the Bush administration\'s war on drugs, and the president is pressing for more money to use Marines and other military resources to help keep drugs out of the country. For years the Pentagon fought the idea, arguing it would sap readiness to fight conventional wars and involve soldiers in police work, customarily a civilian concern. Those misgivings seem to have diminished. The exact features of the military transformation are not yet clear, but some signs are visible. U.S. troop strength is being cut, bases closed, weapon programs illed and security threats reassessed. Less clear is what these changes will mean for individual soldiers and their families, for communities and companies that depend on a thriving military-industrial complex, and for a NATO alliance facing possible disintegration. Bush says he hopes attrition will reduce the ranks of the military so that relatively few soldiers will have to be discharged. ``I would like to think that a kid that went in to make a career out of this would not be unceremoniously dumped from the armed services,\'\' he told reporters recently. As Pentagon planners redefine the military\'s mission, politicians are rushing to reset the nation\'s spending priorities. They see a new hope for social programs that took second place to the 1980s military buildup. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has proposed carving out a $169 billion ``peace dividend\'\' over the next five years _ more than quadruple the savings proposed by Bush in the same period. Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., accuses Bush of ``beating plowshares into swords.\'\'\r\n'),(1337,2,'The sale of $7.3 billion in new weaponry to Saudi Arabia is just one step in creating a Persian Gulf ``coalition defense\'\' against the long-term threat posed by Iraq, say two senior Bush administration officials. That sale will be followed by more sales next year to the Saudis, perhaps to their neighbors Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, and new military help for Israel, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of State Reginald Bartholomew told Congress on Wednesday. In doing so, the United States hopes ``to build a Saudi and a gulf force capability that will, in effect, drive up significantly the costs to anybody looking to take a whack at them,\'\' Bartholomew said. ``We do not want to leave the road to Bahrain open, as it was on the second of August,\'\' the day Iraq invaded Kuwait, he told a hearing of two House Foreign Affairs subcommittees. President Bush has asked Congress for permission to sell $7.3 billion worth of weapons, including tanks, attack helicopters and anti-missile defenses, to Saudi Arabia. The two officials said the weapons would help the Saudis present a more credible deterrent to aggression from Iraq or elsewhere, and would permit them if attacked to resist long enough to allow reinforcements from friendly countries to arrive. They noted that past U.S. military sales to the Saudis, some $50 billion over the past four decades, helped build many of the facilities that now are supporting Operation Desert Shield, the American-led international troop deployment in that country. ``Some have said that once Desert Shield is over Iraq will no longer be a threat because the U.S. and allied forces will have destroyed the Iraqi military,\'\' Wolfowitz said. ``We cannot count on that. ... No outcome is likely to permanently eliminate Iraq as a regional power.\'\' U.S. strategy is based on a principle of ``coalition defense,\'\' Wolfowitz said. He said that includes strengthening the ability of gulf nations to defend themselves, encouraging defense cooperation among countries in the region and making it easier for them to receive reinforcements from allies. The sale of 150 advanced M1A2 tanks is particularly important, Wolfowitz said, noting that U.S. strategists were particularly afraid of Iraqi tanks in the early days of the military deployment. ``We had severe concerns about the ability of Iraqi armor to penetrate rather quickly,\'\' he said. ``We didn\'t have anything on the ground to stop Iraqi tanks. We don\'t want to ever be in the position of saying that again.\'\' The officials asked that Congress quickly approve the newest sale to Saudi Arabia. They said additional sales to Riyadh, as well as to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, would be proposed early next year. Next year\'s Saudi package will include F-15 fighter planes, additional Patriot anti-missile batteries and more tanks and anti-armor weapons, Bartholomew said. The administration also is considering requests from Bahrain for Apache attack helicopters and multiple-launch rocket systems, and from the United Arab Emirates for Apaches, he said. Responding to concerns from supporters of Israel, Wolfowitz noted the administration is prepared to quickly transfer two Patriot batteries from current U.S. stocks and is looking at additional ways to aid Israel militarily. Asked by Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., whether it is U.S. policy to retaliate against Iraq immediately if it attacks Israel, Bartholomew said: ``I don\'t have any reason to open that up to question.\'\' Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., raised the possibility that weapons sold to Saudi Arabia could fall into enemy hands if its current government ever falls, and cited similar past occurrences in Iran and Kuwait. Bartholomew acknowledged that some U.S. weapons that had been sold to Kuwait now are in the hands of Iraqi forces, including a number of improved Hawk antiaircraft missiles, TOW anti-tank missiles, self-propelled 155-millimeter howitzers and ammunition, and about 16 A-4 attack aircraft.\r\n'),(1338,2,'Opposition parties today demanded an inquiry into why the state-run television company helped finance an anti-communist film on which President P.W. Botha\'s daughter was production coordinator. The film, ``Back To Freedom,\'\' opened in South Africa last week and has been panned by critics as an amateurish propaganda exercise. The far-right Conservative Party called for appointment of a commission to investigate the South African Broadcasting Corp.\'s involvement in the production. Parliament member Dave Dalling, spokesman for the liberal Progressive Federal Party, said the film company involved was owned by a friend of President Botha\'s. Dalling asked who authorized the SABC to provide more than $1 million to finance the film. Botha\'s daughter, Rozanne, was production coordinator of the film, but in the credits her last name is given as ``Both\'\' instead of Botha. The film\'s scriptwriter, a university professor, also used a pseudonym. The controversy over the film was sparked by reports in Sunday newspapers that the Cabinet minister formerly in charge of the SABC, Alvyn Schlebusch, had recommended the corporation withhold the final installment of its payment to Mimosa Films, more than $200,000, because the film was substandard. According to the reports, President Botha overruled Schlebusch and ordered the payment be made. Schlebusch subsequently resigned. The Cabinet minister who now oversees the SABC, Stoffel van der Merve, said the broadcasting company\'s involvement in the film was legitimate. The SABC, in return for its financing, was to get all profits from domestic box-office receipts and half of overseas profits. The movie plot is based loosely on the current civil war in Angola, in which South African-backed rebels are fighting the Soviet- and Cuban-supported troops of Angola\'s Marxist government. South African military equipment was used in the film, and dozens of soldiers reportedly served as extras. The Sunday Times newspaper said the script was believed to have been submitted to Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi for approval.\r\n'),(1339,2,'President F.W. de Klerk will meet President Bush on Sept. 24 in the first U.S. visit by a South African leader in decades, a government official said today. De Klerk, who has launched wide-ranging reforms since assuming power a year ago, was scheduled to meet Bush in June. But the visit was canceled after anti-apartheid groups in the United States protested, saying Bush should first hold talks with African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela. Mandela, who saw Bush in June, said it did not matter who met first with the U.S. president. Mandela has said his movement has no objections to a Bush-de Klerk meeting, but wants to United States to maintain its limited economic sanctions against South Africa to protest apartheid. A South African government source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said an official announcement of de Klerk\'s visit would be made this afternoon. No South African leader has visited the United States since the apartheid system of racial segregation was formally implemented in the late 1940s, officials said. De Klerk says he wants to end apartheid and negotiate a new constitution with opposition groups that would allow whites and blacks to share power. Under apartheid, the 5 million whites dominate politics and the economy and the 30 million blacks have no voice in national affairs.\r\n'),(1340,2,'An elderly woman drowned in flood waters, and 30,000 people in Outback areas remained isolated as heavy rain continued across much of eastern Australia, police said Saturday. Ngari Roberts, 64, drowned at Mudgee in central west New South Wales state when her motorcycle was swept downstream as she tried to cross a swollen creek. Her body was discovered late Friday by her husband. The town of Charleville, in western Queensland state, was underwater and officials said an estimated 4,000 people, many waiting on the roofs of the flooded homes, would have to be removed by helicopter and boat. Queensland state premier Wayne Goss declared the central and western areas of his state a disater area and promised financial aid for victinms of the flooding, caused by three weeks of heavy rain. Meteorologists said the rain was the heaviest in 40 years in the region, which is normally dry and dusty. Dozens of small communities remained cut off as the Royal Australian Air Force continued to drop food and supplies to isolated rural towns. A number of usually placid rivers were overflowing, killing thousands of sheep and cattle. Residents of the New South Wales town of Nyngan worked through the night to sandbag the banks of the Bogan River and prevent it from flooding the town center. Some of the 90 passengers in a train surrounded by flood waters near the town of Longreach were evacuated Friday and other passengers were to be airlifted Saturday.\r\n'),(1341,2,'Share prices on the London Stock Exchange were little changed Thursday amid some profit-taking and uncertainty over the market\'s direction. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index was off 0.4 point, or 0.02 percent, at 1,878.9. Trading volume was 558.9 million shares, compared with 521.6 million shares Wednesday. Analysts said the market appeared to be consolidating the advances of the previous two sessions, when the key index climbed 35 points. ``People are starting to question whether the rise to 1,900 is sustainable,\'\' one trader said. Roger Charlesworth, senior dealer at Chase Manhattan Securities in London, said the market was having a delayed reaction to Wednesday\'s news of a half-point rise in the British commercial banks\' base lending rate to 9 percent. Higher rates, he said, ``might be quite bearish because it\'s not to wring inflationary pressure from the economy but rather to stabilize the currency.\'\' News that Rowntree PLC had decided to accept Nestle S.A.\'s sweetenend takeover offer of 2.55 billion pounds, or about $4.5 billion, continued to support selected issues in an otherwise declining market, dealers said.\r\n'),(1342,2,'After Vic Monia headed a campaign that helped persuade local voters to limit developments on surrounding hillsides, he immediately had to fend off a $40 million defamation suit filed by a developer. Citizens who crusade against local polluters or new developments are increasingly likely to be hit with such suits, called ``SLAPPs,\'\' or Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, two University of Denver professors say. They say the suits are unconstitutional and discourage citizen participation. Some SLAPP targets, however, are SLAPPing back, with notable success. The suit against Monia, a computer engineer in Saratoga, Calif., never made it to court. Last year, nine years after it was filed, he won $200,000 in a countersuit when a jury ruled he was the victim of malicious prosecution. But the developer\'s SLAPP against Monia and his environmental and homeowners group had an effect. Intimidated city council members exempted the developer from some new restrictions and many local homeowners\' groups disbanded, Monia said. ``I saw the impact of the lawsuit in the community: a lot less participation,\'\' he said. ``People were talking about: `You\'ve got to be careful. You speak out, someone\'s gonna sue you.\' ``I got so preoccupied,\'\' he said. ``I ended up leaving my job. I thought about moving out of the state. My daughters at the time were quite young, we\'d just moved into a new home, the payments were pretty good-sized. And my wife said, `Are you sure you haven\'t risked everything we\'ve worked for?\' It really began to weigh very heavily on me.\'\' Now, he said, he\'d think twice before participating in local politics. Monia\'s is one of hundreds of cases tracked by law professor George Pring and sociology professor Penelope Canan as part of a 2{-year study financed by the National Science Foundation. Pring and Canan say there are thousands more and the numbers have been growing since the 1970s, with the greatest concentration in areas with a high quality of life and a large number of educated newcomers, particularly California, New York and Colorado. Among the SLAPPs they studied: _A Louisville, Colo., woman circulated petitions opposing plans for a housing development on nearby farmland and was sued by the developer. _A Sutton, W.Va., blueberry farmer told federal authorities that operators of a nearby coal mine had polluted a river and killed fish in it. He was hit with a $200,000 libel lawsuit. _A group of citizens in Washington and Warren counties in New York went to court to block a planned trash incinerator and were countersued by the counties for $1.5 million. _The League of Women Voters in Beverly Hills, Calif., supported a ballot initiative to stop a condominium project and wrote two letters to a local newspaper criticizing it. The developer sued the league for $63 million. SLAPPs aren\'t meant to be won _ they\'re meant to intimidate, the professors concluded. They usually don\'t even get to court, and once there, more than 90 percent of the plaintiffs lose, Pring said. By that time, though, the citizen opposition often is scared off or into compromise, the professors said. The average SLAPP seeks $9 million in damages and takes 36 months to resolve. ``Hundreds of people we\'ve talked to are literally terrified at the thought of losing their homes under multimillion-dollar lawsuits,\'\' Pring said. The suits also dissuade people who merely hear about them from participating in politics, he said. State authorities are starting to act. A legislative proposal in New York, for example, would require developers to prove actual malice on the part of citizen opponents before they could file SLAPPs, said Nancy Stearns of th New York Attorney General\'s Environmental Protection Bureau. ``It\'s troublesome,\'\' Stearns said. ``Particularly in the environmental arena, citizen participation is really key. The law relies on the involvement of citizens in the environmental process. It\'s not just exercising rights, but being a responsible citizen.\'\' She said the increase in SLAPPs in the last 10 to 15 years could be due to rising citizen concern about the environment. Pring and Canan said it also could be the result of a generally more litigious society, noting that many SLAPPs are unrelated to the environment but instead are filed by local or school officials against citizens or parents. In a recent case in suburban Denver, for example, a teacher accused by fundamentalist Christian parents of teaching witchcraft sued the parents for slander. Police officers have sued citizens who complained about their behavior, and elected officials have claimed defamation when citizens called for their jobs, the professors say. ``The right to tell our elected government representatives what we think and what we want them to do for us is the most basic right we have,\'\' said Pring. ``What is more basic than parents going to school with complaints about their children\'s education?\'\' Monia said he stewed about the ``injustice\'\' of the suit filed against him for almost a year after it was dismissed before deciding to sue the developer and the developer\'s attorney. In addition to the $200,000 jury award from the developer last year, Monia won an out-of-court settlement with the attorney. In a more prominent California case last year, a group of Kern County farmers who successfully fought off a SLAPP by agribusiness giant J.G. Boswell Co. in a water dispute countersued and won a $13.5 million judgment against Boswell for infringing on their constitutional rights. The court ruled Boswell filed the libel suit in 1982 to intimidate the farmers so they would not support a state proposition. ``Unlike SLAPPs, many SLAPP-backs are succeeding,\'\' said Pring, who testified on the farmers\' behalf. ``It used to be filers could file these cases with impunity. ... Now I have to counsel would-be filers and their attorneys they may be walking themselves into a multimillion-dollar action.\'\' Still, he said, the farmers told him they would never again participate in politics. Monia, who said he was lucky enough to be able to weather nine years of legal bills, hopes his victory encourages others. ``And I hope that they can feel that if they go after individuals or companies who misuse the judicial system for political purposes, that they can win,\'\' he said.\r\n'),(1343,2,'The PLO on Thursday accused fighters of a pro-Iranian militia of killing a Palestinian guerrilla and wounding three others deployed to quell battles between Shiite Moslem militias in south Lebanon. The fundamentalist Hezbollah, or Party of God, issued a statement in Beirut denying the PLO charge and said its fighters ``did not fire a single shot on Palestinian positions.\'\' But a Sunni Moslem cleric, Sheik Maher Hammoud, who maintains close ties with Hezbollah, said fundamentalist fighters fired at the Palestinians on the strategic Hamade hill, which overlooks the forward lines of Hezbollah and its rival militia, the Syrian-backed Amal. The militias have been fighting intermittently since May 1987 for dominance of Lebanon\'s 1.2 million Shiites. The latest battles have been waged on the fringes of PLO strongholds, in south Lebanon\'s Iqlim al-Tuffah, or apple province. About 700 members of Yasser Arafat\'s Fatah movement were deployed last week to try to disengage the warring factions, and no major clashes have occurred since Monday between the militias. The PLO claimed Hezbollah gunners opened fire on a PLO disengagement force Wednesday, killing one guerrilla and wounding three. The commander of the Fatah force, identified only as Col. Abu Fadi, said the guerrillas ``will be forced to return fire to defend ourselves\'\' if Hezbollah fires on them again. A police spokesman, who cannot be named under standing regulations, said Hezbollah believes the PLO intervention has helped Amal and stopped Hezbollah from taking the entire region. Police could not confirm the Palestinian casualties. They said the bodies of two slain Hezbollah fighters were found early Thursday in Iqlim al-Tuffah. The police spokesman said the two men were apparently slaughtered by Amal militiamen after being taken captive. Police said one Hezbollah gunman was also killed and two Amal militiamen were wounded in a brief shootout in the village of Arki, six miles southwest from the main area of fighting. The casualties, excluding the Palestinians, upped the overall toll to 97 dead and 277 wounded since the current round of clashes broke out Dec. 23. Fatah\'s political chief in the southern city of Sidon, Zeid Wehbe, refused a Hezbollah appeal for the withdrawal of Arafat\'s men from Iqlim al-Tuffah. ``We are not an occupying force to be asked to withdraw,\'\' Wehbe said in a statement published in several Beirut newspapers. ``We are a disengagement force. When fighting is over and its consequences are solved, we will return to our previous bases,\'\' he was quoted as saying by the independent An-Nahar daily. Iran\'s deputy foreign minister, Mohammad Ali Besharati, who is in Beirut trying to enforce a cease-fire, has warned of the dangers of the Palestinians\' expansion in Iqlim al-Tuffah and called on them to withdraw promptly to their nearby refugee camps. But sources from both Shiite factions spoke of a deadlock. In public statements, Amal chieftain Nabih Berri insists on an unconditional withdrawal of Hezbollah from all territories it conquered during the latest round of fighting. Hezbollah has offered a gradual withdrawal, coinciding with negotiations on finding a way for both militias to exist in the region. There was sporadic sniper fire interspersed with blasts from rocket-propelled grenades Thursday, but no casualties were reported.\r\n'),(1344,2,'Rain was scattered across the South on Sunday, and rain and high wind lashed the Pacific Northwest. Showers and thunderstorms associated with a slowly moving cold front were over Arkansas, Louisiana, and eastern and south-central sections of Texas during the afternoon, with some locally heavy rain. Showers and thunderstorms also produced locally heavy rain over northern and central Florida. Heavier rainfall totals for the six hours up to 2 p.m. EDT included 2.31 inches at Shreveport, La.; 1.70 inches at Mayport, Fla.; 1.37 at Fort Polk, La.; 1.33 at Pine Bluff, Ark.; 1.24 inches at Daytona Beach, Fla.; 1.11 inches at San Antonio, Texas; and 1.10 at Alexandria, La. Killeen, Texas, got 2.99 inches of rain during the 12-hour period up to 2 p.m. EDT. A cold front crossing the northern Pacific Coast region carried rain and high wind to parts of Washington and Oregon. Quillayute, Wash., got 1.49 inches in six hours during the night. Showers were scattered from eastern Washington state into the northern Rocky Mountains. Strong southwesterly wind blew over the northern high Plains, with a gust to 66 mph during the morning at Livingston, Mont. Blustery northwesterly wind carried cold air into Oklahoma and Texas during the afternoon. Temperatures in the 70s extended as far north as the Carolinas and southern sections of the Ohio Valley. But clouds and northwesterly wind kept afternoon temperatures in the 30s and 40s across the northern half of the Mississippi Valley, and afternoon readings were mostly in the 40s from the Dakotas to the northern and central high Plains. Temperatures were in the 40s and 50s across much of the West, and in the 80s in the desert Southwest. Overnight temperatures dipped into the teens and 20s in the Great Basin that includes Nevada and western Utah, and in the Rockies. Readings dipped below freezing during the night across upstate New York and northern New England, over the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma Panhandle, and from the northern and central high Plains to Minnesota. Wheat Ridge, Colo., tied its record low for the date of 23. Sunday\'s low for the Lower 48 states was 3 above zero at Gunnison, Colo.\r\n'),(1345,2,'Special interests paid nearly $600,000 last year for speeches by a half-dozen top leaders in the House. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the tax-writing committee, took in the most with $285,000, according to financial disclosure reports made public Tuesday. Rank-and-file members shared in the speechmaking windfall to supplement their $89,500 salaries. All told, House members accepted millions of dollars for speaking and writing, and many got more for talking than the average family earns in a year. The flow of speaking fees, mostly from special interests that ranged from colleges to banks, was hardly slowed by the allegations of financial improprieties that led last year to the resignations of Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, and Rep. Tony Coelho, D-Calif., the majority whip. Wright\'s successor, Speaker Thomas S. Foley, D-Wash., reported he received $32,000 in honoraria. Coelho\'s successor, Rep. William Gray, D-Pa., claimed $164,098. Foley\'s successor as majority leader, Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., reported $34,500. Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., was the top talk-for-pay lawmaker outside the leadership, with $160,517. House members are allowed to keep honoraria equivalent to 30 percent of their salaries and most give what is left to charity. Rostenkowski traditionally spreads the excess among churches and schools in his hometown of Chicago. Republican Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia handed over $29,304 of his $67,491 in fees to the Atlanta zoo. The disclosure statements of most House members were made public Tuesday, although some lawmakers were granted extensions. Senators\' reports will be released Wednesday. Speaking and writing fees were not the only source of outside income for members of the House, which has dozens of millionaires. One of the wealthiest, Rep. Amory Houghton, R-N.Y., an heir to the Corning Glass Works fortune, received $127,000 last year for managing family trusts. Rep. Don Sundquist, R-Tenn., listed dividends of $5,000 to $15,000 from his stake in a popular barbecue restaurant, Red, Hot `n Blue, in Arlington, Va. Rep. Ronald Machtley, R-R.I., earned interest by lending money to his own campaign committee. Rep. Dante Fascell, D-Fla., who heads the Foreign Affairs Committee, pocketed a $24,000 salary from his law firm, $11,913 in Social Security benefits and as much as $15,000 from his stake in a thoroughbred horse breeding operation. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is under investigation by the House ethics committee because of his association with a male prostitute, was paid between $15,000 and $50,000 as an advance on a book he is writing. Rep. Ben Jones, D-Ga., an actor who played on the old ``Dukes of Hazzard\'\' show, received a $10,625 advance for his autobiography. Another ex-actor, Rep. Fred Grandy, R-Iowa, earned $26,219 in royalties from his tour on the ``Love Boat\'\' series. Rep. J. Howard Coble, R-N.C., won $600 in a congressional pinball tournament and donated it to charities in his district. Rep. Curtis Weldon, R-Pa., who once helped extinguish a fire in a House office building, was reimbursed for expenses of 19 speaking trips to fire-fighting organizations in 16 states last year. He received no fees for those speeches. Weldon is a founder of the congressional fire-prevention caucus. Rep. Chester Atkins, D-Mass., earned $17,307 as chairman of the Massachusetts State Democratic Committee. Rep. Stan Parris, R-Va., sold a 1948 Chrysler roadster for something between $15,000 and $50,000. Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, D-Colo., earned nearly $14,000 designing Indian jewelry. Rep. Herbert Callahan, D-Ala., was paid $12,000 in director\'s fees from the Finch Companies. Although Democrats, who control the House, were paid the most for their speechmaking, Republicans shared in the wealth. Republican Leader Robert Michel of Illinois reported $49,300. Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, who heads the House Republican Conference, was paid $31,000. As part of a bill raising their government salaries, House members agreed that 1990 will be the last year they will receive honoraria. Senators will allow themselves lower government salaries than House members after this year but will keep their speaking fees. In addition to their speaking fees and other honoraria, members of Congress and most other federal officials are required to disclose their assets, not including their homes; their investments, most liabilities and gifts. The forms require that values be listed only by broad category. For example, a multimillion-dollar holding is reported only as worth more than $250,000. Some members are more precise. Rep. William Natcher, D-Ky., whose seniority and Appropriations Committee position make him one of the most powerful House members, listed no speaking fees, no gifts, no liabilities, no investment transactions and no membership in any organization. He listed nine properties valued at $144,978 from which he collected $4,200 in rent, and the $4,131 savings account that earned $212 interest. Not all are so lucky in their finances. Rep. Tommy F. Robinson, R-Ark., who switched parties last year, listed among his liabilities more than $250,000 he owes Jerral W. Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys. Jones\' daughter left a $60,000-a-year job on Robinson\'s staff last year after the congressman and Jones had a falling out over Robinson\'s plans to run for governor. Rep. Doug Barnard, D-Ga., reported assets of between zero and $5,000 with no liabilities. On the other hand, Gephardt, who sold rental homes in Missouri last year, had no liabilities but assets of as much as $915,000. Rep. William Green, R-N.Y., an heir to the Grand Union food stores, reported one of the highest 1989 incomes among House members, at least $507,857 and perhaps as much as $1.26 million. His campaign committee returned to him between $100,000 and $250,000 of personal funds he had invested in his 1984 re-election effort.\r\n'),(1346,2,'The mayor handed out a harsh etiquette lesson to city workers after he read a newspaper column describing a telephone caller\'s rude treatment. ``I was livid. I was very frustrated,\'\' Mayor Joseph R. Paolino Jr. said Friday. ``That\'s just the kind of action I\'ve been trying to ferret out of City Hall.\'\' Paolino delivered a tongue-lashing in person to the Department of Inspection and Standards Thursday after reading the columnist\'s account of her attempt to get a zoning question answered. The mayor also transferred one employee suspected of rudeness to a job where he will not have to field incoming calls. The columnist, Gayle Gertler of The Providence Journal, wrote that two city divisions referred her back and forth and one worker responded to her questions by saying, ``You\'re not listening, dear.\'\'\r\n'),(1347,2,'The Senate will vote Wednesday on a resolution denouncing Sen. Dave Durenberger for financial misconduct. Only Durenberger and, perhaps, fellow Minnesota Republican Rudy Boschwitz are expected not to vote for the resolution. Durenberger\'s press secretary, Lois West, said the senator would vote ``present.\'\' Boschwitz\'s press secretary, Tim Droogsma, said his boss may vote the same way. West said Durenberger had ruled out a challenge to the resolution, which she said the rest of Durenberger\'s colleagues are expected to approve. ``There have been senators who said they would support him in whatever he wanted them to do,\'\' West said. ``Durenberger, if asked, has been saying that he would just as soon they accept it _ as he has done.\'\' The Senate Ethics Committee recommended last week that the full chamber denounce Durenberger for ``unequivocally unethical\'\' conduct in connection with a book-promotion scheme and Senate payments on his Minneapolis condominium. Durenberger will be required to make up to $123,000 in restitution to the Senate. He had appealed to the committee for a lighter penalty, saying denouncement was ``much too onerous.\'\' ``Once the decision was made, he said he wasn\'t going to challenge it. It was appropriate to argue (the penalty) in advance,\'\' West said. Boschwitz was considering voting against the resolution until he talked to Durenberger and learned he would not challenge the sanction, Droogsma said. Boschwitz believes Durenberger has already been punished by the length of the 22-month-old ethics investigation and the $500,000 in legal fees he has incurred, Droogsma said.\r\n'),(1348,2,'Colombian journalists who have risked their lives to cover the drug trade are being honored by Harvard University\'s Nieman Foundation. The 1990 Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism has been awarded to Colombian reporters, both living and dead, who have covered the drug industry and its effect on that country, the foundation announced Friday. Luis Gabriel Cano, 67, president of El Espectador, a Bogota newspaper, will accept the award this fall. El Espectador has lost many of its staff to death or exile and had its newsroom bombed by narco-terrorists last September. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based human rights group, has documented the killing of 20 reporters and editors in Colombia by agents of drug lords in the last five years. However, Cano and other Colombian journalists estimate that 50 news organization employees, including business employees, have been killed, the foundation said. Among those murdered was Cano\'s brother, Guillermo Cano, El Espectador editor-in-chief and a columnist. ``Mr. Cano has lost his brother and several of his associates to the narco-mafia assassins, and recently suffered a major bombing to the paper\'s installations which caused $2.5 million in damages, seriously jeopardizing the paper,\'\' T. Roberto Eisenmann Jr., editor of La Prensa in Panama and a former Nieman fellow, wrote in nominating Cano for the award. ``Yet Cano struggled on, realizing that if his newspaper fails in its efforts, his country\'s institutions might crumble, giving way to narco-mafia dominance. His courage is especially inspiring for our profession.\'\' A committee of the 21 members of the Nieman Fellow Class of 1990 chose the Colombians for the award, which is named in honor of former Nieman curator Louis M. Lyons. The award carried an honorarium of $1,000. Cano will travel to Cambridge to accept the award on behalf of his Colombian colleagues.\r\n'),(1349,2,'President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said today his country needs Western assistance to make his reform program work, and he promised that any aid will be repaid. Gorbachev spoke at a news conference after a day of meetings with Italian Premier Giulio Andreotti, the president of the European Community. Andreotti is a leading proponent of providing aid to the Soviet Union. No agreements were reached in the talks about Italian or European aid to boost Gorbachev\'s reform program. Gorbachev said the Soviet Union needs help producing more food and consumer goods for the market, and that factories need a chance to work with foreign firms to boost their productivity. As an example of Soviet inefficiency, Gorbachev has said 25 percent of the nation\'s crops are lost during harvesting and storage. The resident of the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union\'s largest republic, today warned of a food shortage ``catastrophe\'\' in Russia unless efficiency improves. ``We have to gather it carefully, preserve it and get it onto the table of the Russian people,\'\' Boris N. Yeltsin said. ``The existing food situation in our republic is critical,\'\' he said in an appeal on the front page of the Sovietskaya Rossia newspaper. ``To prevent a catastrophe, we must improve it immediately.\'\' As an incentive, Yeltsin said the government would issue special coupons to agricultural workers, from farmers to tractor drivers, allowing them to buy goods that have been in short supply. Russian Prime Minister Ivan Silayev warned in a separate interview that if the market is not soon saturated with food and consumer goods ``the situation will be unpredictable.\'\' ``The prices will simply skyrocket and the shadow economy will capture everything,\'\' he told Pravitelstvenny Vestnik newspaper. Gorbachev said the next two years of reforms will be crucial. ``In these two years, in which we will have to make the most difficult changes, we need this kind of help,\'\' Gorbachev said. Some of the aid should be given quickly ``to reduce the difficulty of the problems, and so perestroika does not slow down,\'\' he said. However, he added, the Soviet Union ``cannot depend on foreign sponsors\'\' to fix its economy, but must depend largely on itself. Aid to his country will not be ``a handout,\'\' he said, but temporary assistance that must be paid back. The West German government has guaranteed $3.1 billion in bank loans to the Soviet Union, and together with France it pushed the European Community to endorse an immediate $15 billion aid program. But European leaders refused to go along with the plan, as did leaders of the world\'s seven largest capitalist powers meeting in Houston, Texas, earlier this month. President Bush says a program to provide the Soviet Union with Western advisers and know-how would be of greater benefit than economic aid until the Soviet Union makes greater changes in its economy. He also has asked Gorbachev to cut aid to countries like Cuba.\r\n'),(1350,2,'A rocket blasted into space today carrying an unmanned probe on a six-month mission to Mars that is designed to help prepare for a manned voyage to the planet. Soviet television broke into its evening news program ``Vremya\'\' for a live broadcast of the 9:38 p.m. launch from the Baikonur space center in the Soviet Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan. A 180-foot-tall Proton rocket capped by the probe, Phobos I, erupted in white and gray smoke and orange and blue flames. The newscast switched to the Soviet Mission Control Center outside Moscow, which reported the spacecraft\'s flight was normal. More than a dozen nations are participating in the mission to swoop close to the surface of Mars\' moon, Phobos, and drop probes onto the small, potato-shaped moon that scientists say may hold clues to how the universe was formed. A second satellite, Phobos II, is scheduled to blast off July 12. The satellites will enter Mars\' gravity in January and begin a three-month remote study of the surface and atmosphere of Mars. After that, scientists said, they will draw closer to Phobos and drop descent vehicles carrying laser, ionic and radar equipment to help determine the internal structure and composition of the moon. The probes are expected to be sent to Phobos in about April of next year, according to Roald Sagdeyev, director of the Soviet Academy of Sciences\' Space Research Institute. Soviet space scientists said Phobos is an important step toward a manned flight to Mars, which they hope can take place in the early 21st century. Officials including Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev have proposed that the United States take part in the mission. ``First, it is necessary to draw up a more accurate map of the Mars surface in order to choose a place for the future landing,\'\' said Vyacheslav Balebanov, a deputy to Sagdeyev. ``Then, it is necessary to study the climate and soil characteristics and find out whether oxygen should be taken from Earth, or whther it can be gotten directly on the planet. The study of Mars renewed under the Phobos program should provide answers to those questions,\'\' he said in an interview with the newspaper Sovietskaya Rossiya. Also participating in the project are Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Ireland, Poland, Finland, France, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Sweden, the United States and the European Space Agency. The Deep Space Network of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration will provide tracking data to permit two 100-pound landers to reach Phobos, and then will begin to track the Martian moon precisely using antennas in California, Spain and Australia, and a Soviet radio telescope in the Crimea.\r\n'),(1351,2,'WASHINGTON _ (AP) _ Democrats on Thursday urged President Bush to take a hard line against Japanese trade barriers when he meets with Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu this weekend, but they delayed action on retaliatory legislation. House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., told Bush in a letter he should go into the meeting Saturday in California with the new prime minister armed with specific proposals for opening the Japanese market to more U.S. exports. ``The time for talking about the problem is coming to an end and the time to actually produce results is here,\'\' Gephardt said, referring to a continuing annual $50 billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan. Bush and Kaifu are meeting just a week after trade negotiators for the two countries made little progress in talks in Tokyo on removing structural barriers that effectively keep U.S. products and services out of the Japanese markets. U.S. officials had hoped for more progress after the ruling Liberal Democatic Party\'s large victory in Japan\'s parliamentary election Feb. 18, but the last round of talks remained focused largely on technical matters. ``Our negotiators are now complaining openly about Japanese intransigence,\'\' said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee\'s trade subcommittee. Baucus had planned to asked the committee Thursday to approve a bill directing the administration to retaliate with new U.S. barriers to Japanese goods if Tokyo doesn\'t agree by a June 17 deadline to lower its barriers to American wood products. The deadline, established by the 1988 Trade Act, also applies to Japanese barriers to U.S. satellites and semiconductors. Baucus, however, agreed to withhold the bill after U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills told him in a letter Thursday the administration is prepared to retaliate on its own ``should the negotiations not conclude satisfactorily and on time.\'\' ``Hopefully, President Bush and Prime Minister Kaifu can make progress on these isses this weekend,\'\' he said. Baucus estimated that Japanese tariffs, building codes and other structural barriers are effectively keeping out between $1 billion and $2 billion in U.S. forest products at a cost of 10,000 jobs in this country.\r\n'),(1352,2,'Chinese authorities are arresting and torturing Tibetans despite the end of martial law in Tibet, the Dalai Lama said Wednesday. The Nobel prize winner and spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists was in New York to help launch a yearlong campaign to raise public awareness of Tibetan culture and call attention to China\'s rule over his homeland. In March 1989, civil strife rocked Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and martial law was imposed for a year. The Public Security Bureau in Tibet later said 387 Lhasa citizens died in the anti-Chinese riots. Most of them were Tibetans but some security forces also were killed, the bureau said. Tibetans claim more than 450 of their people were killed. Martial law was lifted in March, but the Dalai Lama told reporters ``the actual situation has not at all improved.\'\' ``The military uniformed personnel changed their clothes to police uniforms and plainclothes. ... Incidents of arrest and torture, these also continue,\'\' said the Dalai Lama, who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership of his people. He said he feared that ``in 15 years, if present conditions don\'t change, the Tibetan community will become insignificant in its own land,\'\' now a province of China. About 6 million Tibetans still live in their homeland, but they are outnumbered by Chinese even in Tibet. ``After 40 years of Chinese occupation, much of Tibet\'s civilization has been destroyed,\'\' the Dalai Lama said. Actor Richard Gere, who is the president of Tibet House in New York, introduced the Dalai Lama at a news conference to begin the Year of Tibet, a series of art exhibits and cultural events to promote public awareness of Tibetan culture. ``Many of my friends find Tibetan culture quite healthy, quite useful,\'\' said the Dalai Lama, who then chuckled and added, ``But I don\'t know.\'\' Many of his remarks were sprinkled with self-deprecating humor. The Year of Tibet opens with a show of more than 150 works of Tibetan art, including 31 from the Hermitage collection in Leningrad, in April 1991 at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. It moves to New York in October 1991.\r\n'),(1353,2,'The Nicaraguan government is withholding approval of the names the State Department has submitted as replacements for eight U.S. envoys who were expelled by Sandinista authorities last month, a spokesman said Friday. Other officials said the administration does not intend to replace Ambassador Richard Melton, who was among those expelled, but instead plans to send Kenneth Skoug, head of the State Department\'s office of Cuban affairs, to run the embassy. As embassy charge d\'affairs, Skoug would not require Senate confirmation. The officials, speaking only on condition they not be named, said it was doubtful that any ambassadorial nominee could receive Senate confirmation before congressional adjournment on Oct. 8. They said Sandinista refusal to approve the envoys proposed as replacements apparently was in retaliation for the U.S. expulsion of Nicaraguan Ambassador Carlos Tunnermann, who served as chief envoy to both the United States and the Organization of American States. Nicaragua maintains that the administration acted beyond its authority in expelling a diplomat accredited to the OAS. State Department spokesman Charles Redman said a U.S.-Nicaraguan agreement calls for a reply to be given on visa applications for diplomats assigned to either country\'s embassy within five days of the visa request. The Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry informed the U.S. Embassy in Managua that this provision of the agreement had been suspended and that both the agreement and the U.S. visa requests were under review, Redman said. ``Stalling on the issuance of visas indicates the Sandinista regime wishes to prevent the U.S. Embassy from functioning normally,\'\' Redman said. On July 11, Nicaragua ordered the seven American diplomats to leave the country within 72 hours, charging that they had been interfering in Nicaragua\'s internal affairs by encouraging anti-government protests. The State Department denied that the diplomats had acted improperly and ordered Tunnermann and seven of his colleagues home. It said Tunnermann had engaged in unspecified illegal activities during his U.S. stsy and that a U.S. agreement with the OAS permitted the United States to expel any OAS diplomat guilty of such behavior.\r\n'),(1354,2,'Up to 14 inches of snow fell Thursday over the mountains of the West and extended onto the southern Plains, while locally heavy rain fell over parts of the South. Record high temperatures were posted in the East. Overnight snow accumulations in Nevada included 14 inches at Mount Charleston, 12 inches at Goodsprings and Sandy Valley and 8 inches at Red Rock. Mount Charleston had 36 inches of snow on the ground at 9 a.m. Snowfall Wednesday and overnight into Thursday across Arizona included 18 inches at Ash Fork, up to 10 inches at Prescott, 5 inches at Cottonwood, and 1 to 3 inches at Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Sedona, Payson and Bisbee. In southern Colorado, 4 inches of snow had fallen at the San Luis Valley at midmorning and snow was falling at the rate of 1 inch an hour at Wolf Creek Pass. Wind gusted to near 70 mph at Albuquerque, N.M., and to 80 to 100 mph in eastern sections of the city. In Texas, 2 inches of snow covered the ground at Amarillo at noon, with 5{ inches across the west side of town. ``The plows are out, it\'s still snowing and it\'s slick in spots,\'\' said a Department of Public Safety dispatcher in Dalhart, Texas. By 3 p.m., 6 inches of snow had fallen on the northern Panhandle city, and it was still snowing heavily. Two- and 3-inch overnight snowfalls were reported over the western two-thirds of the Oklahoma Panhandle. And 2 inches of snow fell during the morning at Hugoton, Kan. Ahead of the snow, showers and thunderstorms reached across northern Texas, western and southern Oklahoma, Louisiana, southern Arkansas, Mississippi, and southern Alabama. Tyler, Texas, got 1.71 inches of rain overnight, Longview, Texas, got 2.01 inches and up to 3 inches of rain was reported over Houston County. Thunderstorms also produced almost an inch of rain during one hour along with small hail at Abilene, Texas. Rain also fell over sections of southeastern California, southern Nevada and northern Arizona, changing to snow at higher elevations. Light rain was scattered over northeastern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania. Record highs included 70 at Baltimore; 62 at Boston; 54 at Burlington, Vt.; 57 at Concord, N.H.; 66 at Harrisburgh, Pa.; 64 at Philadelphia; 58 at Portland, Maine; 71 at Roanoke, Va.; 68 at Washington; and 65 at Wilmington, Del. Thursday\'s low for the Lower 48 states was 22 degrees below zero at Yellowstone National Park. Temperatures around the nation at 3 p.m. EST ranged from 6 degrees below zero at Yellowstone to 85 at Tampa, Fla.\r\n'),(1355,2,'CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather told the University of Oklahoma\'s graduating seniors Saturday that if America is to reclaim the ideals that made it great, today\'s graduates must acknowledge that ``greed is out\'\' and ``achievement is in.\'\' ``You must leave here today with a commitment to contribute,\'\' said Rather, commencement speaker for Oklahoma\'s 96th graduation exercise. ``Find a life\'s work worthy of yourself and your heritage, commit yourself with all the zeal that you can muster and throw yourself into it.\'\' In Stillwater, the state\'s new higher education chancellor told Oklahoma State University\'s graduating seniors that research funds will provide the means by which the state will successfully adapt to the future. ``Money, money, money ... that is what is needed. And we should not be bashful about it,\'\' said Chancellor Hans Brisch.\r\n'),(1356,2,'The prosecutor responsible for convicting reputed cocaine kingpin Carlos Lehder Rivas says the powerful Medellin Cartel\'s days are now numbered, but a defense lawyer predicts the verdict will be overturned. Lehder was convicted Thursday of smuggling more than three tons of cocaine into the United States. Authorities say the 38-year-old Colombian was a key figure in the cartel, a violent drug ring responsible for about 80 percent of U.S. cocaine imports. The flamboyant Lehder, described by witnesses as a one-time New York City street hood, was characterized by U.S. Attorney Robert W. Merkle, chief prosecutor in the case, as the most important drug smuggler brought to trial in the United States. The verdict capped a seven-month trial on an 11-count federal indictment charging him with taking over the island of Norman\'s Cay in the Bahamas to smuggle cocaine into Florida and Georgia from 1978 to 1980.\r\n'),(1357,2,'Lawton Chiles\' coattails failed to help son Ed Chiles win a seat in the Florida Senate. Lawton Chiles was elected governor, but his son lost in Senate District 24 on the state\'s southwest coast to businessman John McKay. ``I feel like a winner,\'\' said Ed Chiles, like his father, a Democrat. ``I just don\'t feel like a loser.\'\' He said he was pleased with the 48 percent of the vote he received in the heavily Republican district. Ed Chiles, a restaurant owner from Holmes Beach, said he may not be coming to Tallahassee as a senator, but plans to visit the governor\'s mansion. ---\r\n'),(1358,2,'Solidarity leader Lech Walesa said Thursday he will be able to work with newly appointed Prime Minister Mieczyslaw Rakowski despite past differences. ``I know his arguments and his way of thinking,\'\' the leader of the banned trade union movement said, speaking at a news conference on his 45th birthday. Walesa referred to the legal period of Solidarity in 1981, when Rakowski was deputy prime minister in charge of dealing with trade unions. Solidarity was banned in early 1982. ``I always came to Mr. Rakowski in those times with various problems and I always looked afterward at what I got, and not at Mr. Rakowski. I have to admit I had no complaints about the work,\'\' he said. ``Similarly now I am ready to solve all the problems that I am going to raise. I have enough arguments, all of Europe and the world know them,\'\' said Walesa, winner of the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize. Parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved Rakowski as the country\'s ninth prime minister since World War II. The government led by Zbigniew Messner resigned Sept. 19 following strong criticism of its failure to achieve reform. In his speech to Parliament, Rakowski asked for two weeks to form a government of people with ``reformatory attitudes\'\' and said he hoped to broaden the Communist-dominated government. Walesa said he could shed no light on exactly when planned round-table talks with authorities slated for mid-October will begin. Authorities agreed to the talks on Solidarity after a wave of strikes in August. ``Society is waiting for the round-table talks, that is evident,\'\' Walesa said. He said Solidarity would object if the talks were stretched out for too long. ``We are not marathon runners,\'\' he said. In a statement issued Thursday, the Warsaw branch of the Club of Catholic Intelligentsia urged the round-table to take decisions to change the form of public life in Poland and called for legalization of Solidarity. ``The fulfillment of this postulate (legalization of Solidarity) is the essential condition of actual reform of political and economic life,\'\' the statement said. Club President Andrzej Stelmachowski has played a key role as an intermediary between the authorities and Solidarity recently. In London, the opposition Labor Party on Thursday accused British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of ``supreme hypocrisy\'\' in arranging to meet Walesa Oct. 18 in Gdansk at the end of a three-day official visit. ``She is undermining the position of trades unions at home while appearing to encourage trades unionists in another country,\'\' said George Foulkes, Labor Party foreign affairs spokesman. Mrs. Thatcher\'s Conservative government has drastically reduced British labor union powers.\r\n'),(1359,2,'The Pentagon must provide a realistic five-year spending plan because the current budget indicates that $138 billion in spending cuts are needed to meet President Bush\'s defense goal, a congressional report says. ``The Congress is faced with budget decisions that will have long-term implications, but without an updated five-year defense plan, it does not have the information necessary to fully assess alternatives,\'\' Comptroller General Charles Bowsher told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Bowsher presented the General Accounting Office\'s assessment of defense spending. The investigative arm of Congress found that Bush\'s budget for fiscal 1991 includes a five-year program that projects spending of $1.5 trillion. That total is $212 billion less than the recent five-year plan that the administration prepared in fiscal 1989. However, the Pentagon has come up with only $74 billion in reductions from the 1989 projections. ``The Defense Department is still faced with decisions on how and where to make reductions of another $138 billion between fiscal 1992 and fiscal 1994,\'\' Bowsher said. The Pentagon, he said, has said the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and the lessening Soviet threat to the West has made it difficult to decide where and how the reductions will be made. The comptroller general said the GAO does not expect the Pentagon to act hastily, but the decisions must be made soon. Bowsher suggested that the administration ``rethink our entire weapon system acquisition strategy,\'\' starting with the B-2 stealth bomber and the multiple-warhead MX nuclear missile. Repeating testimony he gave last week to the House Armed Services Committee, Bowsher suggested slowing down production of the costly stealth bomber until critical tests have been completed on the radar-evading aircraft. According to the GAO, the current schedule calls for spending more than $48 billion and ordering 31 bombers before critical performance tests have been conducted. The GAO also found that the Air Force plans to make an initial production decision on moving the MX missile from fixed silos to railroad cars before operational tests and evaluations have been done on the completed system. Shortly after the production decision, the Air Force plans to buy about 73 percent of the launch cars for the MX. Bowsher said that during the 1980s, the strategy of concurrent production and testing ``was designed to get systems in the field more quickly, but it often resulted in making extensive _ and expensive _ changes after the systems were fielded.\'\' The B-2 bomber and the MX rail-garrison program are following the same path, he said. Overall, the comptroller general painted a dire financial picture as he accused the Bush administration of spending projections that are ``the result of creative bookkeeping; they do not portray the real situation.\'\' According to Bowsher, the government is using surpluses in the federal trust funds for Social Security, highways and other divisions to cover up the real budget deficit. ``If we continue along this same path, we can expect the national debt to increase to $4.5 trillion by fiscal year 1995,\'\' Bowsher said. ``A debt of this magnitude would require annual interest payments of over $335 billion and would represent the largest single item in the federal budget.\'\'\r\n'),(1360,2,'An administrative law judge found Brian P. Monieson, former head of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, guilty Friday of failing to adequately supervise two employees accused of defrauding customers. Monieson, chairman of GNP Commodities Inc., was barred from futures trading and ordered to pay a $500,000 fine. GNP Commodities was found guilty of similar charges and ordered to close all customer accounts within 30 days and pay a $500,000 fine. Monieson\'s attorney, Jerrold E. Salzman, said the penalties against his client and the trading firm are on hold while the ruling is appealed to the full Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The two traders, Ira P. Greenspon and Norman K. Furlett, also were found guilty by Judge George Painter of the CFTC. A lawyer said they were considering an appeal. ``The fraud in this case was committed against the retail customers, a euphemism for relatively small public customers who are virtually defenseless,\'\' Painter said. ``The shame of this case is that GNP and Monieson were so callously indifferent to the wrongs done to their most vulnerable customers,\'\' he added. CFTC attorneys said Greenspon and Furlett engaged in ``allocated\'\' trades that bilked customers of thousands of dollars. The term refers to initiating futures contracts without the required customer account numbers, then keeping profitable trades for themselves while socking customers with the losses. ``The facts set forth in this matter constitute a pernicious, widespread and institutionalized scheme of cheating and defrauding customers,\'\' Painter said. He banned Greenspon and Furlett, both of Malibu, Calif., from the futures industry and fined them $75,000 each. Monieson\'s attorneys argued that as chairman of Chicago-based GNP Commodities, he was not involved in daily oversight of his employees and should not be liable for failing to stop any wrongdoing. Painter dismissed those claims, referring to testimony from others who said Monieson was clearly a hands-on manager. ``It appears that Monieson\'s misplaced allegiance to Furlett and Greenspon overshadowed his greater duty to the customers they were defrauding,\'\' the judge said. Monieson, of Northbrook, Ill., and GNP Commodities were found guilty of failing to adequately supervise the two traders from September 1984 through May 1986. Monieson was Merc chairman from 1983 to 1985. Futures are contracts to buy or sell commodities, ranging from agricultural products to stocks and bonds, at a specified price on a future date. People trade futures contracts either to lock in commodity prices in advance, thereby reducing their financial risk, or to speculate on price changes. In Chicago, GNP Commodities issued a statement calling Painter\'s decision ``unprecedented and unwarranted.\'\' If executives are responsible for their traders\' misdeeds, even when the executives did not personally benefit, ``no firm could continue to do business,\'\' the statement said. Mark S. Boyle, one of two attorneys representing Greenspon and Furlett, said he had not seen the entire 135-page ruling but was considering an appeal. ``We still maintain they did nothing wrong,\'\' Boyle said. Neither of the men currently works for GNP Commodities, he said. Meanwhile, in Chicago, the Merc on Friday fined GNP Commodities $100,000 and told the firm to continue its voluntary effort to pay $300,000 to customers who may have been harmed. Under a proposed settlement with the Merc, GNP Commodities neither admits nor denies violating exchange rules.\r\n'),(1361,2,'South Korea launched regular ferry service with China today for the first time since the Korean peninsula was divided in 1945. A 4,300-ton ferryboat carrying 130 people left the western port city of Inchon for Weihai on China\'s Shandong peninsula, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. The boat will leave Inchon twice a week, Yonhap said. It will fly a Panamanian flag because the two countries have no diplomatic relations. South Korea has strengthened economic and non-political ties with China, a close ally of Communist North Korea. In recent months it has also increased ties with the Soviet Union and most of the formerly Communist nations in Eastern Europe. China intervened on North Korea\'s side in the 1950-53 war between the Koreas. The two Koreas have never signed a peace treaty, and hundreds of thousands of troops guard their borders.\r\n'),(1362,2,'Rep. James Howard, D-N.J., who died last week after suffering a heart attack, was eulogized today as a productive congressman whose contributions can be seen throughout the country. ``He worked hard and he played hard and he laughed full-tilt,\'\' said House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, who spoke during a Roman Catholic funeral Mass for Howard. ``His candle burned brightly for 60 years and others came and lighted their candles from him,\'\' said Wright. More than 850 people, including four busloads of congressmen and their aides, attended the service at St. Catharine\'s Church here. Aides to Howard restricted access to the church because it could hold about 400 people, and a crowd of about 450 watched from the street as the casket was brought into the church. Loudspeakers broadcast the service to those gathered outside. Howard, 60, died Friday, a day after suffering a heart attack while playing golf in a Washington suburb. He represented the state\'s 3rd Congressional District and served in the House for 22 years. He was the second-most senior member of New Jersey\'s congressman behind Rep. Peter Rodino, also a Democrat. Acting as pallbearers at today\'s funeral were Sen. Bill Bradley and Rep. Robert A. Roe, both D-N.J., Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt, R-Ark., state Sen. Frank Pallone, D-Monmouth, and Monmouth County freeholders John Villapiano and John D\'Amico. Rep. Morris K. Udall, D-Ariz., also spoke during the service. ``Jim was one of the best, most productive congressmen, most beloved congressmen,\'\' said Udall, who attributed Howard\'s success to his honesty and his enthusiasm. ``I never saw anyone with a more infectious manner come to the House floor. He was everywhere at once,\'\' said Udall. As chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, Howard largely controlled highway and transportation projects nationwide. ``The handy work and fruits of Jim\'s labor\'\' can be seen in Monmouth County as well as across the nation, Wright said. In Washington on Monday, the House and Senate voted unanimously to name the New Jersey segment of Interstate 195 after Howard. Howard\'s staff says it will continue to provide service to constituents, although the district will not have a vote in the House until a successor is elected. Gov. Thomas H. Kean must call a special election to replace Howard and has said he will consider holding it Nov. 8 as part of the general election. Third District voters would be asked to pick someone to finish the final two months of Howard\'s term, and cast a second vote to choose a congressman for a full term beginning in January 1989.\r\n'),(1363,2,'State Sen. Greg Tarver was shot and wounded Saturday night, but refused to press charges after identifying the attacker as his wife, police said. The shooting happened at Tarver\'s home less than an hour after he returned from a special session of the Legislature in Baton Rouge. Police learned of the shooting when Tarver\'s mother phoned to report it, said Police Chief Charles Gruber. Tarver, 41, a senator since 1984 and one of only a handful of blacks in the 39-member body, was taken to LSU Medical Center, Gruber said. Hospital spokeswoman Elaine King said he was in stable condition, and a doctor said he was taken into surgery. Gruber said Tarver was shot once in the upper chest with a small caliber weapon about 6:45 p.m. ``He has identified his assailant as his wife, Sabrina,\'\' said Gruber, who disclosed no motive at a hospital news conference. ``There are no charges being filed at this time,\'\' Gruber said. ``She is not in custody at this time. We are not looking for her at this time. ``Sen. Tarver requested that we not pursue anything at the moment,\'\' he said, adding that police would pursue an investigation in case Tarver changed his mind about pressing charges. Gruber would not say where Mrs. Tarver was, and there was no answer at the Tarver home. Dr. Darryl Williams, dean of the LSU Medical School, said Tarver was taken into surgery. And, though he wouldn\'t speculate on the risk, Williams added: ``Any injury in that area can be life-threatening.\'\' Several of Tarver\'s legislative colleagues and one of Gov. Buddy Roemer\'s aides went to the hospital soon after he was shot.\r\n'),(1364,2,'For East German voters, it\'s not just unification that lies over the rainbow. It\'s Western prosperity as well. That was the main message from Sunday\'s historic free elections, which gave the conservatives a huge and unexpected win. Born in church basements where young activists once met to hide from the despised secret police, the peaceful revolution that ousted hard-line Communist rulers five months ago quickly lost its innocence and idealism. After unleashing tens of thousands of people on the streets, the New Forum opposition movement found that the thirst for riches soon drowned out calls to reform socialism for the good of the people. East Germans, many with tears in their eyes, asked over and over again ``what have we been doing for 40 years?\'\' as they gazed in wonder at the glittering shops of West Berlin after the Berlin Wall crumbled in November. Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany, spotting the most basic of all election issues, furiously campaigned throughout East Germany with a message of ``prosperity for all.\'\' Many recalled that that was also a favorite slogan of Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, the late West German leader who guided the post-war ``economic miracle.\'\' Sunday\'s conservative win, engineered in large part by Kohl, shows that East Germans believe in a second economic miracle. ``The East Germans have voted for the West German mark and for unification,\'\' commented West Germany\'s ARD television network. ``It was important for them that Kohl was the one with the keys to the cash box.\'\' And that, said ARD, set the Christian Democratic chancellor apart from West Germany\'s opposition Social Democrats, who often lectured East German voters on the need to slow down the pace of unification and curb their expectations. While Poles, Hungarians and Czechoslovaks now enjoy once-unthinkable democracy, it will take them years, if not decades, to reform their economies. The governments will have to attract and compete for Western investment at the same time they learn to cope with multiparty systems. For East Germans, the road to recovery seems much closer. ``The decisive thought for East Germans may have been, `If we vote for Kohl, the money will flow,\'\'\' said Oskar Lafontaine, the Social Democrat governor of West Germany\'s Saarland state who will try to unseat Kohl in December elections. In fact, East German leftists had joined the Communists several times in recent weeks in virtually begging Kohl for billions of dollars in bailout money to save the ravaged economy. Each time, Kohl\'s heavily publicized answer was ``no\'\' _ not until the East German voters show they want true economic reform. Even so, it\'s a long way from voting in the conservatives to accepting the bitter pills Kohl\'s economic advisers and West German investors are likely to be handing out. East Germans, some still covered with grease and dressed in overalls, had been seizing the microphones at dozens of panel discussions to denounce any reforms that would cost their jobs. But last week\'s announcement that West German-led economic reforms will cost 100,000 jobs in the East German automobile industry and related sectors is believed to be just the tip of the iceberg. Another potentially destabilizing factor is the continuing hemorrhage of East Germans relocating to West Germany, many of them trying to take a shortcut to prosperity. ``I don\'t think the results themselves will stop the emigration,\'\' conceded East German Christian Democratic leader Lothar de Maiziere, the top contender for the premier\'s post. ``Rather, it\'s a question of measures that now must be taken.\'\' With the number of emigrants heading West at up to 2,500 a day, those measures will have to be fast and convincing. Kohl himself used his first post-election statements to plead with East Germans to stay put and help build up their ``beautiful country.\'\' There was no mention of the country\'s decaying homes nor of its pollution-choked rivers and air. Left behind with only a few crumbs thrown by loyal voters were New Forum and other leftist groups that had preached the need for East Germans to maintain their own identity and forge a ``new path\'\' between capitalism and socialism. ``It\'s not the first time that a people has forgotten its own martyrs,\'\' commented ARD television, noting that many of the pioneers of the pro-democracy movement had spent years in jail working for their cause. Said Stephan Bickhardt of the leftist Democracy Now party: ``The revolution has cast off its children.\'\' Democracy Now, New Forum and another leftist group had joined together in a much publicized coalition that failed to get even 3 percent of the votes. Other East Germans also see the end of another failed experiment in socialism. ``It\'s just proof that people really are just looking for riches and a trip to Tenerife,\'\' complained government worker Elke Heise, naming the Canary Island that\'s a favorite vacation spot for hordes of sun-hungry West Germans each year. Added East Berlin engineer Fred Mauer: ``The Christian Democrats can now do with us whatever they want.\'\' And that\'s likely to include even more shots called by a West German chancellor eager to see his name go down in history books as the man who united a people torn asunder by the crimes and madness of Adolf Hitler.\r\n'),(1365,2,'The certified world\'s champion credit-card collector _ he never leaves home without a bunch of them _ says he wants to get even more of the handy little plastics. Walter Cavanagh, ``Mr. Fantastic Plastic\'\' as he calls himself, says he is determined to get one of each of the 10,000 credit cards he estimates are available in this country. He figures it will take him five years to reach his goal. ``I figure I only have 12 percent of what\'s out there,\'\' he said in an interview last week. ``My goal is to get them all.\'\' Cavanagh, whose 1,099 credit cars earned him a paragraph in the Guinness Book of World Records, said he applies for 100 cards a month, and gets few refusals. `I did get a letter from a gas company back East asking why I wanted a card since I lived 3,000 miles from one of their stations,\'\' Cavanagh said. He doesn\'t owe on any of the cards because he pays his bills in full. He has found the only drawback to collecting plastics is the barrage of catalogs and other buy-me goodies he gets daily. ``My mailman hates me,\'\' he said.\r\n'),(1366,2,'Harvard University has sold the stock it owned in companies that manufacture tobacco products because of the dangers of smoking. The university decided to sell the stocks last September and completed the sales in March, according to Harvard President Derek Bok. He revealed the sale May 18 in a letter to three Harvard School of Public Health students, who had been demanding the university sell its investments in companies manufacturing cigarettes. ``In reaching its decision, the corporation was motivated by a desire not to be associated as a shareholder with companies engaged in significant sales of products that create a substantial and unjustified risk of harm to other human beings,\'\' Bok wrote. Dr. Allan Blum, a Houston physician and chairman of Doctors Ought To Care, a national anti-smoking group that pushes for divestment of tobacco stocks, called Harvard\'s decision a ``breakthrough morally and financially.\'\' ``This is a historic event that can\'t help but send a message that there\'s something rotten about holding tobacco stocks,\'\' Blum said. Sara Ridgway, vice president of public affairs for the Lorillard Tobacco Co., said the decision may deprive Harvard of profitable stock investments. ``I think it would behoove them to look at the best investments, and our stock has done very well,\'\' she said. Bok said the decision was based on an Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility review. He also said tobacco companies did not adequately answer questions about ethical issues in selling tobacco and their adherence to World Health Organization guidelines for marketing tobacco products in the Third World.\r\n'),(1367,2,'Orders to U.S. factories for ``big ticket\'\' durable goods plunged 2.2 percent in May, the steepest dive in nine months, the government said today. The Commerce Department said orders for durables goods, items expected to last three or more years, totaled a seasonally adjusted $114.8 billion last month. It was the biggest drop in new orders since August, when orders plummeted 2.3 percent, and followed a 1.8 percent increase in April, revised upward from a previous estimate of 1.0 percent. The entire May decline can be accounted for by a precipitous 9 percent decline in orders for transportation equipment. At the White House, spokesman B. Jay Cooper called the report on new orders ``volatile. May\'s decline should not be cause for concern. Shipments continue to show strength and the backlog of unfilled orders remains high.\'\' ``More news that inflation remains under control. It is good news,\'\' Copper added. Economists were surprised by the report. Most had predicted a rise of more than 2 percent in orders on the strength of two big orders late in May to Boeing Commercial Airplanes Co., one from United Airlines, the other from American Airlines. But those orders apparently were not recorded in the Commerce Department\'s preliminary estimate of durable goods. Excluding transportation, orders increased 0.3 percent. Excluding just aircraft, overall orders increased 0.6 percent. Cynthia Latta, senior financial economist at Data Resources Inc., a Lexington, Mass., forecasting firm, said excluding aircraft and defense, order levels are ``not half bad.\'\' ``I think what we\'re seeing is what we want to see, which is continued growth, but maybe some moderation of the pace,\'\' she said. Stronger growth would inject inflation pressure into the economy, she said. Orders in the volatile defense goods category fell 16.6 percent to $8.3 billion, following an increase of 1.9 percent a month earlier. Excluding defense, orders declined 0.9 percent following a 1.8 percent rise in April. The key category of non-defense capital goods, considered a sign of business expansion plans, fell 6.9 percent last month, following a 3.4 percent rise a month earlier. Despite the setback in May, analysts still expect export-producing manufacturers to spend heavily on modernization and expansion. Orders for primary metals, such as steel, zoomed 5.5 percent following a 1.6 percent rise in April. Orders for electrical machinery also posted a strong gain, 3.5 percent, following a 5.0 percent rise a month before. There was a 2.4 percent decline in orders for non-electrical machinery, more than erasing a 1.2 percent gain in April. Shipments of durable goods rose 1.5 percent in May to $114.4 billion, following a 0.9 percent decline in April.\r\n'),(1368,2,'ROBERT DOLE Income: $310,310-$329,995. Honoraria: $106,050, of which $80,000 was donated to charity. Gifts: $11,858. Assets: $275,290-$579,277. Liabilities: None. Dole\'s income included $50,000 in royalties from a joint autobiography with his wife, $30,000 for a daily radio talk show and a $13,896 Army pension. His gifts included a Steuben glass apple from the New York State Republican Committee and an $800 crystal sculpture from the Columbia University Business School. His wife, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, reported income $221,538-$301,025 and up. Her qualified blind trust generated income of more than $100,000. She had assets of $440,005-$975,000 and liabilities of $50,001-$100,000. Mrs. Dole accepted gifts valued at $2,937, including air travel, a $900 brooch from Countess Sophie Vavlitis of New York City; and a $500 ``Cuatro\'\' guitar from Anibal Marrero of Puerto Rico, a $150 suit from Rep. Jim Lightfoot, R-Iowa, and his wife; and $35 in roses from Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd and his wife.\r\n'),(1369,2,'The Pentagon on Monday charged that a House committee\'s report on the Strategic Defense Initiative is basically a ``rewrite of a fundamentally flawed\'\' congressional report released in July. ``There are a number of problems with the conclusions and finding of both reports,\'\' the Pentagon\'s Strategic Defense Initiative Organization said in a one-page statement responding to the study done by the Government Operations Committee. The panel report, issued Sunday, cited a General Accounting Office study issued this past summer that raised serious questions about deploying the first phase of the strategic defense system, commonly known as Star Wars, in 1993. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said detailed tests planned by the SDIO wouldn\'t be completed by the time the president has to decide whether to go ahead with deployment. Based on the problems of incomplete testing, the General Accopunting Office said it did not believe the ``will be able to give the president enough information to support a 1993 decision to deploy Phase 1.\'\' The incorporation of the ``Brilliant Pebbles\'\' concept into the strategic defense system in January drastically changed its design, leaving it in a state of flux. ``Brilliant Pebbles\'\' are several thousand interceptors that would orbit the Earth to seek and destroy a target by smashing into it at high speeds. The House committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., warned that Brilliant Pebbles could become the next version of the ill-fated Hubble telescope, the $1.5 billion telescope whose primary mirror is flawed and provides a blurred view of its viewing targets. Responding to the reports, the SDIO said the 1993 decision was never a decision on whether to deploy but rather a choice on moving toward full-scale development. ``Given recent budget cuts, all decisions have been delayed by at least two years - and deployment of Brilliant Pebbles would not begin before late in this decade,\'\' the SDIO said. The organization also contends that the General Accounting Office exaggerated the changes in design of the system after the introduction of Brilliant Pebbles. It also said the president could make a decision on the system with the tests planned. The organization added that cost estimates are continuing to drop, ``a trend which we believe all in Congress should support.\'\' ``The recent House Goverment Operations Committee report on the Strategic Defense Initiative is essentially a rewrite of a fundamentally flawed GAO report released earlier this year,\'\' the SDIO said.\r\n'),(1370,2,'Here are the latest, unofficial results in the Republican races for the U.S Senate.\r\n'),(1371,2,'A tentative settlement has been reached in the week-old Cleveland teachers\' strike, a federal mediator said today. ``I\'m happy to say that the School Board and the Cleveland Federation of Teachers reached a tentative agreement and will be reporting back to their respective constituencies,\'\' Jack Buettner said late this morning. ``The parties will then review the details of the proposal at that time.\'\' Details of the agreement were not disclosed, pending a ratification vote. Superintendent Al Tutela declined to comment on when schools might re-open for the district\'s nearly 73,000 students. Eugene Kolach, president of the 5,100-member teachers union, said union negotiators will recommend to the union\'s executive committee that the tentative agreement be approved. Early this morning, members of the Cleveland School Board said they believed progress was being made toward ending the strike. On Tuesday, Craig Brown, chief negotator for the school board, had said talks seemed to be snagged on the issue of ``career ladder,\'\' a plan to hinge some pay raises largely on performance evaluations. The union\'s contract expired in September. Teaching salaries range from $17,600 to $37,450, depending on education and experience. The average teacher makes $29,000 annually. Tutela said the district\'s 2,951 non-teaching school employees, such as maintenance workers and janitors, were being laid off this week. The layoffs were to continue during the strike, he said.\r\n'),(1372,2,'EDITOR\'S NOTE _ Since her one-woman show, ``Without You I\'m Nothing,\'\' opened off-Broadway in March, Sandra Bernhard has at last tasted the stardom she dreamed about as an insecure little girl in Arizona. Critics praise her brilliant monologues of fantasy and pop cultural commentary. Night-life columnists dog her. That\'s just for openers.\r\n'),(1373,2,'Jerry Dorris is one person who would like to see the Republican National Convention last longer. Business at his video rental store is up 20 percent as a prime alternative to all the political talk. ``I wish the conventions were each two months long and were held every year,\'\' said Dorris, owner of Landmark Video in the Empire State Building, where comedies and action adventures were alternatives to acceptance speeches. ``The majority of our customers want to be entertained after a day of work. They don\'t want to be bored by the convention. The general comment is they\'ve had enough and they\'d much rather watch a movie,\'\' Dorris said Thursday. A spot check of other stores indicated movie fans have elected to tune out the George Bush and Dan Quayle show, which has filled prime time for the three networks, and flicked to fantasyland instead. ``The Manchurian Candidate\'\' was doing well in some areas, but political movies such as ``All The President\'s Men,\'\' ``The Candidate\'\' with Robert Redford and ``Advise and Consent\'\' gathered dust on the shelves. Nor was there much demand for Ronald Reagan\'s ``Bedtime For Bonzo\'\' or ``Knute Rockne _ All-American,\'\' the movie where he first asked his mentor to win one for the Gipper. ``People are pretty bored with the convention,\'\' said Sue Granat, salesperson at New York City\'s Videoroom, where rentals are up 25 percent. ``There hasn\'t been a good convention since the Democrats in 1968. That had drama and violence,\'\' she said. Rentals also increased during the Democratic gathering in Atlanta, but the earlier convention at least had some electricity between Jesse Jackson and Miachel Dukakis, store officials said. At the Video Circus, rentals were up 33 percent for the week. ``Everyone is complaining, coming in here and saying they don\'t want to be bored,\'\' said store owner Frank Lopez. ``I guess it\'s important, but it\'s quite monotonous after a while. I mean, really, four days of that stuff?\'\'\r\n'),(1374,2,'Grain and soybean futures were mixed in early trading today on the Chicago Board of Trade. Corn prices opened higher as rains continue to hamper planting and increases the likelihood of a reduced crop yield, said Victor Lespinasse, an analyst with Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. However, traders began to liquidate their positions for the weekend, and futures were moving lower. Soybean futures were steady to slightly lower as soggy fields delay the planting of the soybean crop. But the potential for increased soybean acreage as farmers switch from corn is weighing on prices. Wheat futures were higher on reports that disease is spreading through the soft red winter wheat crop in the southern Midwest, Lespinasse said. In early trading, wheat was a { cent to 1 cent higher with the contract for delivery in July at $3.35\\ a bushel; corn was 1 cent lower to 3 cents higher with July at $2.87 a bushel; oats were } cent lower to 1 cent higher with July at $1.48{ a bushel; soybeans were a \\ cent to 2 cents lower with July at $6.02{ a bushel. Livestock futures were mostly higher and pork futures lower in trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Cattle prices were higher on follow-through buying from Thursday\'s strong close and on active meat sales. Pork futures plunged on fund liquidation due to lower cash prices. Live cattle were .15 cent lower to .28 cent higher with June at 75.30 cents a pound; feeder cattle were .03 cent to .20 cent higher with August at 85.30 cents a pound; hogs were .27 cent to 1.02 cents lower with June at 63.80 cents a pound; frozen pork bellies were .55 cent lower to .03 cent higher with July at 66.85 cents a pound. Livestock and pork futures settled mixed in Thursday\'s trading.\r\n'),(1375,2,'Stormy weather spread heavy rain, wind and cold air across parts of New England on Saturday, with snow at some higher elevations, while high wind whistled across parts of the northern Plains. A strong low pressure system over the southern New England coast spread rain over much of the region during the night and into Saturday morning. During the six hours up to 2 p.m. EDT, 1.70 inches of rain fell at Brunswick, Maine; with 1.50 at Portland, Maine; and 1.05 inches at Portsmouth, N.H. Colder air poured in behind the low and changed the rain to wet snow over parts of south-central and northeastern New York state and over most of Vermont. Up to 10 inches of snow accumulated at higher elevations of Tompkins County in New York\'s southern tier. Six to 8 inches of snow was measured across Schuyler County, and Ithaca got 5 inches. The heavy, wet snow in Tompkins County downed several trees and power lines, and at 3 p.m. about half the county was without electricity, said Julie Morehouse, a spokeswoman for the county sheriff\'s department. In Cortland, N.Y., deputies said downed poles and power lines caused widespread blackouts and roads were slippery and thick with slush. Auburn, N.Y., asked Rochester for emergency generators to provide temporary electricity while utility crews worked to restore service. The New England coast was battered by strong wind, with gusts to near 60 mph at Bar Harbor, Maine, during the afternoon. Strong wind and heavy rain knocked down power lines in parts of Maine, and Central Maine Power Co. spokesman Clark Irwin said an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 customers were blacked out in the Portland area alone. At Bath, Maine, the scheduled launching of a new Aegis cruiser was postponed at Bath Iron Works, the first launching to be put off since 1967. Snow was also reported over the higher elevations of southern West Virginia. Showers were widely scattered from the lower Great Lakes into the mid Atlantic Coast. Strong, gusty wind blew over the northern Rockies and northern high Plains behind a cold front moving across the northern Plains, and a few showers developed over central Montana. Gusts to near 60 mph were recorded at Rapid City, S.D., and to 52 mph at Wheatridge, Colo. While the Northeast had snow and cold, the central high Plains had temperatures in the 80s over northwestern Kansas and eastern Colorado. Readings also hit the 80s over much of southern and central Texas, extreme southern Florida and the desert Southwest. In Central America, Hurricane Joan was downgraded to a tropical storm after moving across Nicaragua, causing several deaths and considerable damage. Temperatures around the nation at 3 p.m. EDT ranged from 32 degrees at Binghamton and Saranac Lake, N.Y., to 98 at Palm Springs, Calif. Saturday morning\'s low for the 48 states was 11 degrees at Gunnison, Colo. For Sunday, widespread rain was forecast from the Great Lakes through the middle Mississippi valley and the lower Ohio and Tennessee valleys into eastern Texas and the lower Mississippi Valley. Rain changing to snow was forecast over northern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. Scattered rain was forecast over the eastern Great Lakes and northern Maine. Highs only in the 30s were predicted over northern Minnesota; in the 40s from the northern Plains through the upper Mississippi Valley into northern New England; in the 70s and 80s from the Pacific Coast through the Great Basin of Nevada and western Utah, the southern Rockies, much of Texas and the Gulf Coast states into the southern Atlantic Coast and Florida; in the low to mid 90s over north-central California and the desert Southwest; and in the 50s or 60s across much of the rest of the nation.\r\n'),(1376,2,'A cloth diaper importer has offered this town a year\'s worth of free diapers to show his appreciation for the town fathers\' refusing to let welfare recipients buy the disposable kind. Philip D. Anderson, president of Empire Trading Co. Ltd. of Syracuse, N.Y., said he will supply as many cotton diapers as the town needs at no charge. He said his offer was prompted by a news story about the town\'s Feb. 16 decision to remove disposable diapers from the list of allowable local welfare expenses. Anderson said his company supplies diaper services and mail-order houses with Chinese-made diapers designed to retain their shape after laundering. The town\'s policy change has drawn support from environmentalists and fiscal conservatives who agree with the choice of traditional cloth diapers as an appropriate technology that saves taxpayers\' money. Critics have accused Lisbon officials of making a rash decision to balance the budget on innocent babies\' bottoms. In a letter to the Times Record in nearby Brunswick, Peggy Cotton of West Bath said the restriction was ``for a baby who\'s helpless\'\' and she suggested that town officials ``get their savings someplace else.\'\' Connie A. France, Lisbon\'s welfare director, recommended the policy because throwaway diapers cost $10 a box, while cloth diapers, even with laundering costs considered, are less of a drain on the town\'s welfare budget. France said it would be up to the selectmen whether to accept Anderson\'s offer. But, she added, ``I\'m sure they will.\'\' France said she had no idea how big a diaper demand there was over a year\'s time but, pending the selectmen\'s decision, she would order a gross of diapers from Anderson. The welfare director said that while the diaper rules may have caused a stir outside Lisbon, there have been no complaints from her clients. Town Manager John Bubier said Lisbon officials have received letters and phone calls from across the country in response to the diaper policy, with ``about 98 percent of them\'\' backing up the selectmen. He said 200 to 300 individuals in this town of 12,000 usually receive public assistance benefits during the course of a year. The local welfare budget totals about $35,000.\r\n'),(1377,2,'Sponsors of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion postponed presenting the $369,000 prize to this year\'s winner while they investigate charges that he fostered anti-Semitism, a newspaper reported. Inamullah Khan, secretary-general of the World Moslem Congress, was chosen last month to receive the award. He was the first Moslem to win the award, which has been presented 15 times. The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B\'nai B\'rith protested, saying that Khan and his organization had fostered anti-Semitism for years, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Khan, 73, of Pakistan, has denied the charges and said: ``I can never support anti-Semitic feelings because I am myself a descendant of Semitic ancestors from the Middle East.\'\' He said he differs with Zionists ``because the U.N. General Assembly has declared Zionism a racist creed.\'\' The decision to delay the presentation was announced last week, the Times said. Khan\'s supporters say he and his organization have been more willing than other Islamic groups to maintain contacts with Jewish representatives in national and international settings. However, The Moslem World, a newsletter of the World Moslem Congress, has published many comments critical of Jews and Zionism. The newsletter also has advertised and endorsed ``The Protocols of the Elders of Zion\'\' and Henry Ford\'s ``The International Jew,\'\' both notorious anti-Semitic tracts. Past recipients of the prize include Mother Teresa, the Rev. Billy Graham and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Sir John Templeton, an American-born financier living in the Bahamas, established the prize in 1972 as a religious counterpart to the Nobel Prizes for peace, science and literature.\r\n'),(1378,2,'Lawmakers in the nation\'s second-largest city approved the distribution of chlorine bleach for cleaning needles to slow the spread of AIDS among intravenous drug users. The council vote was unanimous Tuesday after an emotional hearing in which one unidentified man was escorted from chambers when he tried to shout down supporters of the program. The $25,000 allocated for distribution of kits containing bleach and condoms was part of an $85,000 AIDS prevention and education program. The bleach kills the AIDS virus on needles, which drug addicts often share. The money also establishes a central AIDS treatment and information center. San Francisco is the only other governmental agency in California that distributes bleach to clean needles. New York also distributes bleach _ and recently withdrew from a program to distribute clean needles. Critics of the programs charge they promote drug abuse. Supporters say drug abuse will continue regardless of whether needles are sterilized to prevent AIDS. Dave Johnson, the city\'s AIDS policy and program coordinator, estimated that 7 percent of intravenous drug users in Los Angeles County carry the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The City Administrative Office said the $25,000 will pay for 50,000 to 62,000 bleach and condom kits. City officials said they had no way of estimating how many intravenous drug users would use the kits.\r\n'),(1379,2,'Japan reported Tuesday its net overseas assets soared to a record of about $240 billion in 1987, making it the world\'s largest creditor nation for the third year in a row. Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said the figure was up 33.5 percent from 1986, when Japan\'s external assets totaled a then-record $180.4 billion. He presented an annual report to the Cabinet Tuesday that said Japan\'s governmental and private assets abroad at the end of 1987 totaled $1.07 trillion, up 47.3 percent from a year earlier, while liabilities surged 51.9 percent to $830.8 billion. That left Japan with net external assets of about $240 billion. Japan surpassed Britain and other industrialized nations in terms of net external assets in 1985, with a total of $129.8 billion. A Finance Ministry spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday the sharp increase came from active investment in U.S. and other foreign securities by Japanese financial institutions and corporate and private investors. The external assets also include private and government loans, trade credits and the diversion of part of Japan\'s huge trade surplus, which totaled $76 billion last year, to foreign securities acquisitions.\r\n'),(1380,2,'Thousands of people rallied today in Burma\'s two largest cities to demand an end to authoritarian rule, diplomats said, and the government prepared to choose a replacement for the nation\'s ousted leader. An Asian diplomat in the capital of Rangoon cited reports that 100,000 people, including students and Buddhist monks, marched along the streets of Mandalay, the nation\'s second-largest city, 350 miles north of Rangoon. According to 1984 figures, Mandalay is a city of 600,000 people. A Western diplomat in Rangoon said at least 1,000 protesters were present at the start of a demonstration in front of Rangoon General Hospital. It was the third straight day of demonstrations in Burma\'s capital. Japan\'s Kyodo News Service, reporting from Rangoon, later put the number of Rangoon protesters at 15,000. It also said thousands rallied in Mandalay. Security forces made no attempt to interfere with the peaceful protests in both cities, said the diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity. Kyodo said soldiers armed with bazookas were seen in parts of Rangoon, along with tanks and armored personnel carriers. Meanwhile, accusations mounted that Rangoon\'s security forces shot unarmed civilians last week during massive anti-government riots. Estimates of those killed range from 95 to more than 3,000. Security forces allegedly shot doctors and nurses outside the hospital during the rioting, which ended the 17-day rule of hard-line President Sein Lwin. Sein Lwin resigned last Friday as state president and chairman of the Burma Socialist Program Party after five days of massive protests. He had replaced Ne Win, who resigned last month after 26 years of authoritarian rule. Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, cited reports that the party\'s central committee of the Burma Socialist Program Party has been meeting daily since Sein Lwin\'s ouster to prepare for an emergency party session Friday, presumably to choose a new chairman. The legislature also is to hold an emergency session the same day, presumably to name a new president. The state-run Radio Rangoon said 52 people arrested in last week\'s rioting were freed today, including 43 students. According to official reports, 155 people had been released in Rangoon since Tuesday. Several prominent figures arrested July 29-30 still are being held. They include the country\'s leading dissident, Aung Gyi. Sein Win, the Burmese correspondent of The Associated Press, also remains in custody. U.S. State Department officials and a number of Rangoon diplomats say they can at best estimate the number of dead nationwide as ``in the hundreds\'\' given the limited movement of diplomats last week in Rangoon and elsewhere. Dozens of tourists and some journalists witnessed the mass demonstrations last week in Rangoon, but they returned with vague accounts of killings. Only one photograph of a corpse was seen in Bangkok. One senior Western diplomat told newsmen that a grisly ``battle of the bodies\'\' accounted in part for the lack of information about numbers killed. ``When someone is killed, (the protesters) try to get it so they can display the bodies and government tries to get it to cremate it,\'\' he said. After demonstrations in March, diplomats learned that the bodies of a number of young protesters gunned down by police had been taken swiftly to a cremation ground and burned. Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist and Burma scholar, says 3,000 persons were killed in Rangoon alone, including 600 who died at the Rangoon General Hospital. He was not in Rangoon last week, but cited witnesses to the demonstrations he later interviewed by telephone from Bangkok.\r\n'),(1381,2,'Two Michigan businessmen and three companies they control pleaded innocent Friday to charges they bilked a Scott Paper Co. mill out of up to $1 million by bribing an engineer and putting his wife on their payroll. Federal prosecutors say Gerald M. Chernow, 49, and William M. Engelman, 52, cheated the S.D. Warren mill in Westbrook by persuading maintenance engineer David Hilt to buy unneeded maintenance and roofing equipment that was marked up by up to 20 times its cost. Initially, Hilt was given merchandise, gift certificates and money orders, and later, his wife, Ellen, was put on the payroll of one of the Michigan companies, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Gleason said. Chernow and Engelman, both of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., entered innocent pleas before U.S. Magistrate David Cohen. Chernow and Engelman were freed on their own recognizance, but they must hand over their passports and will be required to pay $50,000 bond if they fail to show up to any court proceedings, Gleason said. The two businessmen had appeared in court without being arrested. The two are charged with conspiracy, mail fraud and the use of interstate facilities in furtherance of private bribery. Both businessmen declined to comment on the case, as did defense attorney Julian Sweet of Lewiston. Also named as defendants in the 21-count indictment are Modern Research Corp. and Lincoln Technical Services Inc., both of Troy, Mich., and ABC Chemical Co. of Detroit. If Chernow and Engelman are convicted on all counts, they face up to 105 years in prison and fines totaling $5.25 million each, the prosecutor said. Modern Research and Lincoln Technical Service each face up to $10.5 million in fines, while ABC Chemical could face $6.5 million in fines. Philadelphia-based Scott Paper lost between $750,000 and $1 million in the scheme, the government says.\r\n'),(1382,2,'Late this week, budget talks between the Bush administration and Congress should evolve from preliminary, technical discussions into hard bargaining with election-year politics and billions of dollars at stake. But none of the participants pretends to know what will happen. ``I wouldn\'t hazard a guess,\'\' said one, Senate Budget Committee Chairman James Sasser, D-Tenn. ``These things can go on for so long, and then suddenly as if by magic you seem to reach a critical mass and then there\'s an agreement.\'\' After five weeks and eight private sessions, the Democratic and Republican sides agree that somewhere between $45 billion and $60 billion in new taxes and spending cuts are needed for fiscal 1991, which starts Oct. 1. Unless some deal is worked out by that date, the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law will force tens of billions of dollars worth of spending cuts, an amount both parties say is intolerable. Yet neither side is eager to be the first to lay a plan on the bargaining table at sessions continuing this week, and risk being accused of championing something that the voters might find dreadful. Among the battlegrounds: will Democrats have to swallow cuts in some of their favorite social programs? And will President Bush\'s campaign mantra of ``No new taxes\'\' become obsolete? Democrats say the bargaining can only begin with a concrete offer from Bush, who called for the talks early last month. ``I thought implicitly at the beginning that the administration would present a proposal here,\'\' Sasser said last week. But Republicans say there is no need for the White House to lay down a proposal, and it has no plans to do so. If Democrats continue to insist that Bush present a budget proposal, ``It would be clear at that point that the Democrats don\'t intend to work out an agreement,\'\' said a GOP bargainer, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas. Rep. Bill Frenzel of Minnesota, a Republican negotiator who will retire from Congress this winter, said he might be willing to push a plan forward if no one else will. ``If they need a fall guy, and it\'s said that lame ducks are good at that kind of stuff, I wouldn\'t mind being put in that position,\'\' he said. But that\'s not likely to satisfy Democrats. ``We\'re not interested in hearing from Republican legislative members,\'\' said Sasser. ``That\'s not what it\'s all about. This is a negotiation between the executive and legislative branches.\'\' Contributing to the unpredictability of the talks is the schizophrenic outlooks of the Democratic and Republican teams. Each side has pragmatists like White House budget director Richard Darman and House Budget Committee Chairman Leon Panetta, D-Calif. They seem above all to want a deal that once and for all takes a bite out of the federal deficit, which some project could exceed $200 billion next year. But the two teams also have highly partisan members, such as Sasser and White House chief of staff John Sununu, who seem leery of agreeing to anything that might provide a campaign advantage to the other party. Bargainers say the litmus test for the talks will be whether they have accomplished anything by the start of Congress\' July 4 recess. They argue that agreement is needed by around then for lawmakers to have time this year to enact a deficit-reduction package. ``Everyone feels that if we work day to day until then, we ought to be either well on our way to putting an agreement together or be pretty much facing a task that\'s harder than everybody thought,\'\' said Panetta.\r\n'),(1383,2,'In 1969, like thousands of other bright, young Indian professionals, Naresh Trehan went abroad to further his education. In less than two decades, he was one of the top heart surgeons in New York City with an income of $1.5 million a year, an apartment on Fifth Avenue, a beach-front house on Long Island and two cars in the garage. He wanted to come home, to bring his wife and two children back to their own country, but his professional achievements and aspirations had reached too high. During exploratory trips back to India, he found no place where he was willing to work. So he set out to fulfill a new dream: a world-class heart hospital in India, equipped with state-of-the-art computers and staffed with Indians who had set career goals their country could not accommodate. His Indian dream became a reality when the 170-bed Escorts Heart Institute and Research Center opened in New Delhi in mid-September. ``It\'s like climbing a new mountain,\'\' the 42-year-old Trehan said. ``It\'s a passion for me to come back and train others.\'\' In New York, Trehan performed heart bypass operations and heart transplants. He was director of cardiovascular surgery at the Manhattan Veterans Administration Hospital, and he remains an assistant professor of surgery at New York University. Some years at least 10 percent of his patients were fellow Indians. Trehan reasoned that wealthy Indians who go abroad for heart surgery would pay comparable prices for the same quality of treatment at home _ while saving the cost of air fare and the hassle of travel. Their fees would help offset free or subsidized treatment for others. Trehan enlisted a wealthy industrial family to help bankroll the new hospital, whose start-up cost was budgeted at $20 million and, according to Trehan, will probably rise. News of the project spread by word of mouth among Indian doctors working in the United States and Western Europe. ``I was always thinking that we could do it here,\'\' said Dr. Sunil Sharma, who quit a job at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., to become the Escorts center\'s chief bacteriologist and infection control officer. Sharma, 33, declined to disclose present salary but said it is about one-tenth of what he made in Washington. The main attraction, he said, was the chance to live and work among his own people. ``The standard of living is so high abroad, but we are more emotionally attached to our patients here,\'\' Sharma said. ``In the States, everybody is afraid of malpractice (suits), but here we treat from the core of our hearts.\'\' Of the 30 doctors now on staff at Escorts, 12 have returned from abroad. There were more mundane problems to deal with in establishing the new heart center. ``This hospital is going to be 100 percent fly-proof,\'\' Trehan declared as he strode across the polished-stone lobby to the front door where a powerful downdraft of air from the ceiling thwarts entry of flies and mosquitos. Flies seem to be a standard part of hospital life in India, along with families who camp in the courtyards and hallways, cook meals and try to keep track of a noisy assortment of half-naked children. At J.P. Narain Hospital, one of New Delhi\'s largest, it is possible to walk in off the street and wander through corridors and wards without being questioned. People lie on the floors, and barefoot women in tattered saris flail the hallways with twig brooms that stir up dust without sweeping it away. At the Escorts center, security guards check visitors for passes. ``We are training our staff to a totally different level,\'\' Trehan said. ``And for the first time, we have introduced a housekeeping service similar to that in hotels.\'\' A formula was reached with the government under which 40 percent of all outpatients and 10 percent of all inpatients would be treated free of charge. About 25 percent of the rest would be given subsidized rates, while the rest would pay full costs. Trehan, as the center\'s executive director, will still perform surgery and plans to work for free if patients can\'t afford his bill. The other doctors had to agree to do the same. One of the hospital\'s first patients was Santosh Rani Arora, a 46-year-old widow. A bout with rheumatic fever 22 years ago left her with a severe aortic disease that causes her heart valves to leak. Surgery in 1970 and 1983 failed to solve the problem, according to her sons Sunil and Anil, both government civil servants. The sons expressed concern about being able to afford Escorts\' charges, but Trehan told them they could pay $352 for an angiography test that normally would cost about $463. Later, when the family had left, Trehan said he expected to perform surgery on Mrs. Arora. ``I can forgo my fee,\'\' he said. ``I expect that we can help them out with the rest, and they can come up with whatever they can so we can recover the cost of some of the consumables (supplies and medicine).\'\'\r\n'),(1384,2,'A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to index FBI documents on its investigation of Jimmy Hoffa\'s disappearance 15 years ago Monday, a ruling the former Teamsters leader\'s family hailed as a victory. U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh ordered the government to prepare within 30 days an itemized list off all documents related to a freedom of information request by the family. The government must provide a detailed justification for any documents it wants exempted, Limbaugh ruled. ``Our family is extremely grateful. Fifteen years have gone by without them telling us what they know,\'\' said attorney Barbara Crancer, who sued the government for files on her father\'s case in February 1989. ``We\'ve waited so long to hear something,\'\' she said. Crancer said it was ``pretty ironic\'\' the ruling Friday came just before the 15th anniversary of Hoffa\'s July 30, 1975, disappearance. ``I don\'t think the judge planned it that way,\'\' she said. Calls seeking comment from FBI spokesman John Anthony and Justice Department attorney Henry Fredericks were not immediately returned. Hoffa, 62, vanished from a restaurant parking lot in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Township. Federal investigators have said they believe he was murdered but couldn\'t release their files because their probe was continuing. Hoffa built Detroit\'s Local 299, a tiny Teamsters unit, into a 15,000-member local, and became president of the international union. In 1958, he was hauled before the U.S. Senate rackets committee and accused of running a ``hoodlum empire.\'\' Nine years later, Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering and fraud involving the Teamsters Central Pension Fund and received a five-year federal prison term. Under a sentence commutation he received from President Nixon in 1971, Hoffa was barred from returning to office in the Teamsters until 1980. When Hoffa vanished, he was contesting that provision in court. His son, Detroit attorney Jimmy P. Hoffa has said he thinks his father was killed because he was trying to return to union power.\r\n'),(1385,2,'Walt Disney Co. announced Thursday it will prohibit paid screen advertising in all movie theaters showing the company\'s films. The policy will begin in March with Disney\'s release of the film ``Pretty Woman.\'\' ``Our patrons don\'t dislike screen advertising, they hate it,\'\' said Richard Cook, president of Disney\'s Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Audiences, he said, ``do not come to experience the mundane. They come to escape it. We must not so insult our paying guests (with commercials) and we won\'t.\'\' Disney plans to enforce the anti-ad policy by revoking a theater\'s license to show Disney movies if it shows advertisements. Cook said the action was essential to the continued financial health of the exhibition of motion pictures in movie theaters. ``We have been told repeatedly by moviegoers that they do not want and will not tolerate commercial intrusions in movie theaters,\'\' Cook said in remarks given at the 1990 convention of the National Association of Theater Owners. The Disney announcement was greeted by some groans. A number of theater owners depend on paid advertising to generate extra income. Terry Laughren, president of Screenvision Cinema Network, the nation\'s leading cinema advertising company, said such advertisements bring theater owners millions of dollars annually. ``It\'s real money. It\'s not pocket change,\'\' said Laughren, whose company has placed ads in about 35 percent of the nation\'s 17,500 first-run movie theaters. Cook said Disney won\'t demand that theaters break existing contracts with advertisers, but the company will encourage the theater owners to get out of such contracts. Disney defines screen advertisements as commercials for goods and services projected on the screen in the same theater where Disney films are shown. Previews of upcoming attractions, slides projected for products during intermission and approved charitable advertisements are not affected by the ban, Disney said.\r\n'),(1386,2,'Like other frequent fliers, pilots suffer the effects of jet lag and sleep loss from flight delays, late arrivals and crossing time zones. For them, however, the consequences are potentially disastrous. The second story of a three-part AP Extra series, ``6 Miles Up and Sleepy,\'\' describes the growing medical evidence showing how fatigue and disruption of the body\'s biological clock upset performance in the cockpit.\r\n'),(1387,2,'Four people were killed and 27 injured in a collision between a bus, truck and taxi near Havana, the third serious bus wreck reported in Cuba in the past week, Cuba\'s state-run radio said today. A Radio Rebelde broadcast monitored in Miami today did not disclose when the three-way accident occurred or what caused it. The report said 15 of the injured victims were in serious condition. In a June 25 accident, a train and bus collided near Havana, killing at least 27 people, most of them teens, and injuring about 80 other people, a broadcast said. The day before, Cuban radio reported that 10 people died and 21 were injured when a bus and tractor-trailer collided along Cuba\'s main highway after the bus driver was blinded by lights of oncoming traffic.\r\n'),(1388,2,'Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is proposing a big-power conference with the two Germanys to work out a framework for German reunification, government sources said today. She wants the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France _ the original occupiers of Germany after World War II _ to meet at foreign-minister level with representatives of East and West Germany, said the sources at her Downing Street headquarters. They spoke on condition they not be identified. Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd drew up a detailed proposal and discussed it with Britain\'s allies at this week\'s East-West ``Open Skies\'\' conference in Canada of 23 nations, the sources said. The proposal is expected to be amplified when Mrs. Thatcher meets Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher of West Germany in London on Wednesday. Genscher asked for the meeting, the sources said. They said no date was being set for the conference, but it was hoped it would take place soon after East Germany\'s March 18 elections. Any formulas agreed upon would then be presented to the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Mrs. Thatcher\'s proposal is seen as a response to critics who accuse her of seeking to slow the momentum toward reunification. The British leader has not disguised her concern that hasty moves could undermine European security. On Saturday, at a meeting of her Conservative Party, Mrs. Thatcher stressed that the 1975 Helsinki agreement stipulated that ``no boundaries would be changed except by agreement.\'\' ``So if any boundaries are to be changed, this requires massive consultation between us,\'\' she said. ``All this means the changes they are having now in Germany and moves towards unification must be done in accord with the other obligations to which we signed up.\'\' The Daily Mail, which first carried the report today, said the conference could produce an agreement ``tantamount to a German peace treaty.\'\' No peace treaty was signed after World War II, and although the United States, Britain and France renounced their status as occupiers in 1955, they retain authority in Berlin and maintain armies in West Germany. The Daily Mail said Mrs. Thatcher\'s proposal was a way of saying: ``Let\'s be practical and settle the complex problems at the conference table rather than through demonstrations in the streets.\'\'\r\n'),(1389,2,'Drug and alcohol tests were administered to 18 staff and school board members at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, and now it is the student athletes\' turn. A lottery will select 15 athletes a week, starting this week, to be tested for alcohol and 10 drugs. Two of the samples will be checked for steroids. During the semester a total of 277 athletes will undergo screening in the school district south of Chicago. Football coach John Wrenn said the program already is working. ``Through the grapevine I\'ve heard that some students have gotten help,\'\' Wrenn said. ``That\'s what this program is for, not to punish kids, but to get them help.\'\' Athletic director Ken Schultz submitted the first urine specimen Friday followed by the principal, Charles Smith, and 16 other administrators and school board members. The testing will cost $40,000 to $50,000, school officials said. It will be paid for through donations and increased ticket prices for football and basketball games. Athletes who fail the test will be evaluated by a drug conselor and will be suspended from school for 30 days if considered chemically dependent. They will be reinstated if they follow a treatment plan and pass a new test, but could be suspended for up to a year if they fail the follow-up test.\r\n'),(1390,2,'A judge has ruled that Jesus Christ was innocent of the charges that sent him to his death at the hands of Roman authorities in Galilee two millennia ago, a newspaper in this southern city reported Thursday. Judge Eduardo Rodriguez told the Ideal newspaper the idea to symbolically overturn Christ\'s conviction on charges of political rebellion came to him while he was preparing a prayer for traditional Passion Week ceremonies. ``I consider myself almost a blasphemer because I\'m nobody to judge Christ,\'\' the daily quoted him as saying. ``But my intention was to give Jesus of Nazareth a just sentence and teach a lesson to those who judged him.\'\' Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Roman law around the year 30 after being condemned as a political rebel. ``If that trial had been held with all the due guarantees, he would have been absolved, among other reasons, because nobody was defending him _ he only had accusers,\'\' Rodriguez said. He used Biblical texts to prepare the case and concluded his ruling by asking Jesus for forgiveness.\r\n'),(1391,2,'Investigators tried Saturday to piece together what happened to a free-lance gemologist between her disappearance in February while carrying more than $500,000 in diamonds and her death less than a month ago. An autopsy on Barbara Mangiameli, 33, whose naked body was found Thursday floating in the Hudson River near lower Manhattan, showed that she died within the last month of a beating to the head. She was last seen at her Manhattan apartment building the day she was supposed to return six diamonds worth between $500,000 and $600,000 to their owner after a proposed sale fell through. Two brothers who allegedly arranged a meeting between a potential buyer and Ms. Mangiameli are in federal custody on charges they pawned one of the missing diamonds in Florida. They are not suspected in the murder because they have been in custody since April, and Ms. Mangiameli was then alive according to the autopsy. Ms. Mangiameli\'s body was covered by plastic bags and was bound in the fetal position by a Venetian blind cord around the neck, wrists and ankles, police said. An autopsy Friday found she died from multiple blunt force injuries to the scalp and face that caused skull fractures, brain contusions and brain hemorrhaging, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner\'s office. She was identified through dental records and an appendectomy scar, Ms. Borakove said. ``According to the doctor who did the case, she wasn\'t in the water for very long,\'\' Ms. Borakove said. ``She was not dead for a very long period of time from the time they found her yesterday. It certainly is not months. Whether it\'s weeks or days, I cannot pin it down.\'\' Ms. Mangiameli had worked for 10 years in advertising and two years ago went into the gem business. She recently graduated from the Gemological Institute of America Inc.\r\n'),(1392,2,'There is no Economy Rdp planned for this cycle. The AP\r\n'),(1393,2,'One new poll suggests Vice President George Bush is running neck-and-neck with Gov. Michael Dukakis, while another survey indicates the Republican nominee-to-be is only slightly behind his Democratic rival. The new results contrast with a series of surveys in recent weeks indicating Bush trailed Dukakis in double digits. A telephone survey of 1,013 adults last week by ABC News and Money Magazine, released Wednesday, found 45 percent support for Dukakis and 42 percent for Bush. That amounts to a tie, given the margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. And a Gallup poll of 1,210 voters, also out Wednesday, suggested Dukakis had the support of 46 percent, to 41 percent for Bush. The margin of error was 3 percentage points. By contrast, Gallup, NBC News-Wall Street Journal and Washington Post polls conducted since June 9 have found double-digit leads for Dukakis. The Post survey, done June 15-19, found a 51-39 percent Dukakis margin. The ABC-Money Magazine poll, conducted June 22-25, found support for Dukakis down 7 points from an ABC-Post poll in mid-May that used the same methodology. Bush rose only from 41 to 42 percent support; those who didn\'t know grew from 2 percent to 6 percent. The rest said they wouldn\'t vote or would support someone else. Poll analysts have said they expected the race to tighten as Dukakis came off the crest of his Democratic primary victories. A Harris survey early this month found a dead heat _ 49-44, with a 3-point margin of error _ and a USA Today-CNN poll gave Dukakis a single-digit lead. The ABC-Money Magazine poll had Dukakis leading among women, respondents earning less than $25,000 a year and adults aged 35 to 54. Bush led among men, respondents earning more than $50,000 and those in the 55-64 age group.\r\n'),(1394,2,'First Interstate Bancorp, one of the nation\'s largest banking concerns, on Wednesday reported a 27 percent rise in its first quarter profit over a year ago, when the company battled troubled domestic and Third World loans. Net income for the three months ended March 31 totaled $102.6 million, or $2.20 a share, compared with earnings of $80.5 million, or $1.69 a share. Chairman J.J. Pinola said First Interstate decided last year to increase its loan-loss reserves, and that contributed to the improvement this year. First Interstate posted a loss of $556.2 million for fiscal 1987 because of writeoffs and an addition to its loan-loss provision. Allowances for loan losses at the end of the first quarter stood at $1.39 billion, up from $542 million a year ago. However, during the quarter the copmany reduced its provision for loan losses to $76.4 million from $99.5 million. Net loans charged off were $108.9 million, compared with $92.9 million, First Interstate said. The company said its writeoff fund increased due to its January acquisition of Houston-based Allied Bancshares in a complex stock swap worth between $415 million to $450 million. Allied held a number of distressed properties in Texas, which has been hit by an oil industry slump. First Interstate has taken steps to shed those properties. First Interstate said net interest income rose by 8.7 percent during the quarter while non-interest income was up 4.2 percent.\r\n'),(1395,2,'Americans are smoking less than any time since 1942. The Agriculture Department says cigarette use dropped 5 percent in 1989, the largest decline in six years. And the trend is expected to continue. Overall, American smokers consumed about 533 billion cigarettes last year, the department\'s Economic Research Service said Monday. Exports, however, jumped 20 percent to 142 billion cigarettes. Annual use by the U.S. adult population dropped 7 percent to an average of 2,888 cigarettes, the report said. Economist Verner Grise said that was the lowest average since 1942, when the average was 2,585 cigarettes per adult. The peak was 4,345 cigarettes in 1963, before beginning its longtime decline. The average is for all Americans 18 years and older, smokers and non-smokers alike. It is a statistical comparison only and does not indicate the actual smoking habits of the population. ``Domestic cigarette consumption will probably continue to fall this year because of higher prices, increased restrictions on where people can smoke, anti-smoking activity and declining social acceptance of smoking,\'\' the report said. Meanwhile, the report said total U.S. tobacco output could increase substantially this year, perhaps by 8 percent over the 1989 crop of 1.4 billion pounds. However, smaller on-hand inventories will reduce total supplies for 1990-91.\r\n'),(1396,2,'A Columbus, Ohio, stock brokerage and its president, accused of numerous fraud schemes, were expelled from the National Association of Securities Dealers Wednesday and fined a total of $250,000. Without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, Corna and Co., Inc. and its owner and president, David A. Corna, agreed to the disciplinary action as part of a settlement with the NASD, a self-regulating organization empowered by Congress to oversee the over-the-counter securities market. The firm and Corna were accused of parking securities and making unauthorized trades in clients\' accounts ``on hundreds of occasions between 1985 and 1989,\'\' playing fast and loose with its records _ including creating two bogus customer accounts _ falsifying documents, and not cooperating with an NASD investigation. Parking is an illegal scheme to conceal the true ownership of securities by buying them with the understanding that the original owner will buy them back with no loss to the person they were ``parked\'\' with. The NASD\'s Cleveland Business Conduct Committee said ``the conduct at issue represents some of the most serious violations of the federal securities laws and the rules of the Association that can be a committed by a member. ...\'\' The disciplinary committee also accused Corna of forging the signatures of several customers and former employees. The firm was censured, expelled from membership in the NASD and fined $100,000. Corna also was censured, barred from associating with any NASD member in any capacity and fined $150,000.\r\n'),(1397,2,'The Duchess of York returned to London today after six weeks in Australia, carrying a toy koala bear as a present for the 12-week-old baby girl she left behind in Britain. The 29-year-old duchess arrived at London\'s Heathrow Airport with a white fluffy toy bear under her arm. She smiled at waiting photographers but said nothing before she got into her Jaguar car and took the wheel to drive into London. The baby, Princess Beatrice, stayed in Britain with a nanny while the duchess, the former Sarah Ferguson, was in Australia with her husband, Prince Andrew, second oldest son of Queen Elizabeth II. Andrew, 28, a Royal Navy helicopter pilot, will remain with his ship, the guided-missile destroyer HMS Edinburgh, and is not expected back in Britain until Dec. 16. The couple had a narrow escape from serious injury Wednesday in Fremantle, western Australia, when a steel cable securing the Edinburgh to the dock snapped as they were saying goodbye. The duchess _ on the dock chatting with Andrew, who was on the lower deck of the ship _ was whisked to safety by a security man who saw the cable about to snap less than three yards from where she stood. Andrew and other crew members ducked for cover as the cable lashed back like a whip and smashed into the ship\'s hull. The duchess flew from Britain to Australia on Sept. 21 on her own and met up with Andrew there for the couple\'s 10-day official tour to help celebrate Australia\'s bicentennial. When Andrew returned to his ship, the duchess extended her stay in Australia to have more time with him, traveling from port to port to meet his ship. She also visited relatives in Australia and the British domestic news agency Press Association said she comforted her elder sister Jane over the reported breakup of her marriage with Australian farmer Alex Makim. British tabloids criticized the duchess for spending so much time away from her baby, who was born on Aug. 8. The duchess and Andrew shrugged off the criticism and Buckingham Palace, as is customary, refused to comment on the issue.\r\n'),(1398,2,'Former Temptations lead singer David Ruffin has been found guilty of using cocaine after being jailed for failing to appear at his trial. Detroit Recorder\'s Court Judge John O\'Brien ruled Thursday there wasn\'t enough evidence to convict Ruffin of a cocaine possession charge, but did find him guilty of using the drug. Ruffin faces up to a year in jail at his sentencing, scheduled for May 31. The singer was being held in Wayne County Jail pending a hearing on his failure to appear earlier this week. He failed to appear for court dates Monday and Tuesday morning and was arrested on a bench warrant when he showed up in Recorder\'s Court late Tuesday. Ruffin, 47, originally was charged with possessing a trace of cocaine after a July 28, 1987, raid on a friend\'s home. A co-defendant testified that he and Ruffin were among seven people who pitched in to buy 42 grams of crack cocaine. Ruffin, who lives near Detroit in South Lyon, said he went to the house to find a friend, not to buy drugs. But he admitted Thursday that he had used cocaine recently after O\'Brien threatened to force him to take a drug test. Ruffin, who turned down an offer to plead guilty to a lesser charge, sang with the Temptations, a top Motown group, from 1963 to 1968. He has recently been performing with another former Temptation, Eddie Kendricks.\r\n'),(1399,2,'The spot month contract for light sweet crude was $33.70 per barrel at 12 p.m. Monday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.\r\n'),(1400,2,'Eight teen-agers accused of stealing to get night club admission money were charged in the subway slaying of a Utah tourist who came to the aid of his mother when she was punched in the face, police said. Five were picked up for questioning at the Roseland Ballroom after the fatal attack Sunday night, Capt. Steve Davis said. The other three were arrested Monday. Killed was Brian Watkins, 22, of Provo, Utah. The former college tennis player was in town with his family for the U.S. Open tournament. He was stabbed once in the chest after intervening when his mother was punched. He collapsed on the subway platform at 53rd Street and Seventh Avenue after starting to chase the fleeing thieves, Davis said. ``Brian jumped in to help me when one of the muggers hit me in the face,\'\' Karen Watkins said. She was treated for a mouth cut. The slaying reinforced New York\'s image as a hotbed of urban crime. It was the 18th killing in the city\'s subways this year. In Watkins\' hometown, one homicide was recorded for all of 1989, Provo police records secretary Bobbie Ferguson said. The Watkins family, tennis fans who have visited New York for the past five years to see the U.S. Open, had spent Sunday at the tournament and were on their way to dinner when they were attacked. Their hotel is near the subway station where Watkins was stabbed and the Central Park restaurant they were headed for is located just two subway stops away. Watkins was waiting for a northbound train with his father, Sherwin, his mother, his brother Todd and Todd\'s wife Michelle, when a group of young men approached, one carrying a knife, another wielding a box cutter. Sherwin Watkins\' pants were slashed and thieves took a money clip containing about $200 and some credit cards. One punched Mrs. Watkins in the face. The brothers interceded and one of the men stabbed Watkins, police said. He died later at a nearby hospital. Watkins\' father was treated for a leg cut. The dance club is less than a block from the subway station where Watkins was stabbed. Davis said ``most kids who get off at that stop are going to Roseland,\'\' and that it was ``logical\'\' to investigate there. Debbie Jaspering, a family friend, said she\'d seen the Watkins family at the tennis tournament several days ago, before she returned to Provo. ``They were having a great time,\'\' Jaspering said. ``They were sitting with the family of Brad Pearce,\'\' a touring pro from Provo who lost in the first round of the Open. ``My sister and I had been nervous, you know, two women alone in the city,\'\' she said. ``And this happens to the Watkins, with three men there. It\'s crazy.\'\' Manhattan detective Chief Joseph DeMartino said police recovered several weapons, including a cardboard cutter and a folding ``butterfly knife\'\' believed to be the weapon used to kill Watkins. The motive of the crime was to get money for admission into the night club, DeMartino said. Arrested was Yull Garry Morales, 18, of Queens, who police said stabbed Watkins. Also arrested and booked for investigation of murder and robbery were: Johnnie Hincaipe, Anthony Andersen, Louis Fernando Montiero, Ricardo Lopez, Emiliano Fernandez, all of Queens; Pascual Carpenter, of Long Island and Ricardo Nova, address unknown. All are 18.\r\n'),(1401,2,'President Mikhail S. Gorbachev bowed to criticism of his constitutional reforms Tuesday, saying he will accept tighter limits on presidential power and try to accommodate republics clamoring for more autonomy. Gorbachev, acknowledging the political give-and-take forming in the freer atmosphere he has fostered, told the Supreme Soviet, or parliament: ``Our own socialist system of `checks and balances\' is taking shape in this country, designed to protect society from any violations of socialist legality at the highest state level.\'\' The Supreme Soviet is considering during its three-day session a package of almost 120 articles of legislation first published five weeks ago that Gorbachev says are the first major step toward a political system based on law, not central dictate. But the draft laws faced stiff criticism that they actually stengthen the presidency, which Gorbachev assumed on Oct. 1, against the legislature, and strengthen Moscow\'s power against that of the 15 Soviet republics. The unprecedented criticism of the proposed legislation was highlighted by the Estonian republic\'s Nov. 16 ``declaration of sovereignty\'\' over all internal affairs and demand to review all new Soviet legislation. Several Supreme Soviet deputies, including two top officials from the Baltic republics, registered dissatisfaction Tuesday with elements of the reform. Arnold Ruutel, the Estonian president, told reporters that Surpreme Soviet deputies only received copies of the amended proposals on Tuesday. They have not been published. But Gorbachev, detailing some of the changes to the 1,500 Supreme Soviet members, said, ``It is obvious that some of the provisions of the bills were not formulated precisely enough and cuased quite a few critical remarks in the course of discussions.\'\' ``The draft now gives the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet the right to repeal decrees and decisions by its Presidium, and orders by the Supreme Soviet president,\'\' Gorbachev said. That was implied in the Soviet Constitution, which requires Supreme Soviet confirmation of directives of the Presidium, the highest executive body on which Gorbachev serves as chairman. But the Supreme Soviet almost never has challenged any such directive, and the proposed constitutional amendments said nothing about Supreme Soviet review. Gorbachev\'s reforms call for the formation next year of a Congress of People\'s Deputies, a 2,250-member legislative body that will include representation from the Communist Party, trade and creative unions, and social organizations as well as geographical legislative districts. The Congress will choose a smaller Supreme Soviet, which is to become more active. He said the Congress would have power to recall any official it appoints, including the president. The Supreme Soviet would have the powers of budget oversight and review of the actions of government ministries. ``This right will definitely be used regularly in the new conditions,\'\' he said. It was not immediately clear whether Gorbachev was giving up his proposal to strengthen the president by giving his the chairmanship of the Defense Council and responsibility for foreign policy. In order to further strengthen the system of checks and balances, Gorbachev said a constitutional review commission would be formed, and that judges would be given considerably more independence. To meet complaints from small republics the amendments now give all 15 republics stronger representation in one house of the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet of Nationalities. Gorbachev, who led the Presidium on Saturday in rejecting Estonia\'s challenge, stressed the economic unity of the Soviet Union. But a specific criticism of Estonia originally included in a summary of Gorbachev\'s remarks distributed by the Tass news agency did not appear in the final version, and he struck a conciliatory note. Gorbachev proposed creating a special commission to settle the question of division of powers between the central government and the republics. Soviet Vice President Anatoly Lukyanov, in a news conference, told reporters that a section allowing central authorities to declare a state of emergency and call in soldiers to keep order had been amended to assure the republics any such operation would be temporary, and that they would be consulted. ``We are not approaching the constitution and the republics as something that has been set once and forever. There will be changes and amendments,\'\' he said. But leaders of two Baltic republics still objected. Latvian President Anatoly Gorbunov said direct representation of social and political organizations in the Congress of People\'s Deputies could result in one person holding several seats in the the congress. Another Baltic republic president, Vitautas Astrauskas of Lithuania, called for a new constitution limiting the central government to national issues. Gorbachev\'s ideology chief, Vadim A. Medvedev told a news conference that he believed the Estonian measures were ``adopted spontaneously under public sentiment and emotion that for a certain time got the upper hand in the republic.\'\' ``I\'m not inclined to agree they are an adequate reflection of public opinion in that republic,\'\' he said.\r\n'),(1402,2,'Rain driven by gale-force winds brought heavy flooding Tuesday to southwestern England, leaving the center of this catherdral city of 14,000 people awash in 4 feet of water, police said. The downpour that began Monday night dumped more than 2 inches of rain in two hours on the Cornwall peninsula, said a spokesman for the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary who requested anonymity. Hardest hit was Truro, the administrative center of Cornwall, about 300 miles west of London. Shopkeepers were evacuated from the low-lying areas downtown as emergency workers sandbagged the perimeter of the area to prevent the rising water from spilling into residential neighborhoods, the spokesman said. Other flooded areas included the nearby villages of Carnon Downs, Feock, Devoran and St. Just-in-Roseland. Roads to the seaside resort of St. Agnes were cut off by floodwaters aggravated by rising tides, the spokesman said. Main roads into the Truro area lay under 6 feet of water in some places, the spokesman said, while the River Kenwyn near Truro appeared in danger of spilling its banks. About 50 families across the barren, rugged Cornish peninsula had been evacuated, the spokesman said. A spokesman for the London Weather Center said an Atlantic weather depression spawned the rains and accompanying 35-45 mph winds gusting up to 65 mph. The high winds stranded 400 people bound for Cork, Ireland, at the dock in Swansea, Wales, for 10 hours as the ferry Celtic Pride was forced to ride out the storm at anchor in Swansea Bay, the domestic news agency Press Association reported.\r\n'),(1403,2,'The William Randolph Hearst Foundation will give $1.25 million to Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Opera Co., New York Philharmonic and Juilliard School. ``Our board felt that we had a real opportunity to make a mark on the future of the performing arts with these grants _ an act every bit as important as our traditional areas of support in health, medical research, education and the social services,\'\' Hearst Foundation President Randolph A. Hearst said Monday in announcing the grants. Lincoln Center\'s share will be $200,000 for its new building, which will house young artists and provide new public facilities. The Metropolitan Opera Co. and New York Philharmonic will receive $400,000 each. The Juilliard School, where music and the performing arts are taught, will get $250,000. The Hearst Foundation, a leading supporter of the Lincoln Center Consolidated Corporate Fund, will make its usual annual $100,000 donation, too.\r\n'),(1404,2,'The government accused opponents Monday of attempting a coup and supporters rallied behind it, occupying the offices of one opposition party and forcing another\'s leader to flee in an armored car. More than 15,000 people rallied in Bucharest to support the self-appointed government that took over when Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was deposed and executed last month. News media reported similar demonstrations in several other cities, but gave no details. On Sunday, about 15,000 people protested in the capital, demanding the resignation of the Council of the National Salvation Front, the name adopted by the government that is running the country until elections planned for May 20. After initially declaring its only purpose was to guide Romania through the immediate post-revolutionary period, the Front recently said it would enter candidates in the elections. That decision angered the fledgling opposition, which says the Front _ 150 intellectuals, technocrats and former Communists _ has an unfair advantage. Many opposition politicians have pointed to the Communist pasts of leading Front members and suggested it really is the Communist Party in disguise. As the thousands of pro-government demonstrators gathered Monday outside Front headquarters in Victory Square, three of Ceausescu\'s henchmen pleaded guilty in court to complicity in genocide. Former Interior Minister Tudor Postelnicu, former Central Committee secretary Emil Bobu, and former Politburo member Manea Manescu, along with Ion Dinca, a former Politburo member who pleaded guilty Saturday, admitted supporting Ceausescu\'s order to shoot demonstrators at the revolution\'s outset. About the Sunday protest, Front member Silviu Brucan said it was organized by the Peasants Party, which was a dominant presence in Parliament before World War II and is thought to be the strongest opposition party now. Brucan, a ranking Communist who fell out with Ceausescu after criticizing his dictatorial methods, told reporters the rally was an attempt to overthrow the Front. ``Their shock troops came close to the main entrance of the building,\'\' he said. ``The whole event amounted to a putsch, a coup d\'etat.\'\' Peasants Party spokesman Ion Ratiu said of Brucan\'s allegations: ``The whole thing was turned around to justify their actions today.\'\' He spoke at a news conference called in the hotel room he has called home since returning last week from decades of self-exile in Britain. Ratiu, a wealthy shipbuilder and real estate investor, accused the Front of staging Monday\'s demonstrations. Many protesters arrived at Victory Square in buses and trucks. Another pro-government rally formed around the building that houses Peasants Party headquarters, about two miles from the Front building, and at the nearby Liberal Party headquarters. ``We won\'t leave until you dissolve the party!\'\' demonstrators chanted as they forced their way into Liberal headquarters. Peasants Party leader Corneliu Coposu was evacuated building by soldiers in an armored car. No injuries were reported at either headquarters. Brucan said three people suffered stab wounds to the back during Sunday\'s protest, but that none was in serious condition. Brucan denied Ratiu\'s claim that the Front staged and paid for the demonstrations Monday, but several people outside the Peasants Party building indirectly suggested they had been under pressure to demonstrate. They said they worked in state factories and had joined their bosses at the pro-government rallies. A woman who would not give her name claimed the Sunday demonstration also was less than spontaneous. ``They were given dollars, cigarettes and lei,\'\' she said, referring to the Romanian currency. Both days of demonstrations violated a ban the Front has put on rallies that lack advance authorization from the police. The Front has decreed that rallies should not take place during working hours, but made no attempt to disperse Monday\'s pro-government demonstration.\r\n'),(1405,2,'Shining Path rebels exploded a car bomb on Wednesday near the Government Palace, the second to hit downtown Lima in 24 hours. Police said the attacks signaled a rebel offensive against Sunday\'s presidential elections. Police said the blast destroyed a small car parked behind Lima city hall and wounded one person. Hundreds of military police quickly swarmed through the area and sealed off the Plaza de Armas in front of the palace. In Lima\'s middle-class Jesus Maria neighborhood, four rebels with machine guns took over an electoral office, forced electoral workers outside and set the office ablaze. Firefighters said electoral workers\' identification and most other documents were destroyed. The attack came four days before runoff presidential elections pitting novelist Mario Vargas Llosa against agricultural engineer Alberto Fujimori. The first car bomb exploded one block from the palace on Tuesday night, seriously wounding a passer-by. Rebels launched a wave of overnight violence around the capital. They blew up at least three high-tension power pylons, blacking out parts of the capital and other coastal cities where most of Peru\'s 22 million people live. Power was restored to most areas within a few hours. In pre-dawn attacks Wednesday, guerrillas threw gasoline bombs at a city bus and at a stove factory owned by a senator-elect of Fujimori\'s Change 90 party, police said. They planted a bomb in the doorway of a public high school along with a red flag with the hammer-and-sickle symbol of the Maoist-oriented Shining Path. Police defused the device before it exloded. Police said the attacks also may be in response to last week\'s discovery of an elegant house in a Lima suburb apparently used as the group\'s Lima headquarters. Police said the house may have been used as a hideout by Abimael Guzman, Shining Path\'s founder and leader. Police arrested 31 people in the raid last Friday and found personal possessions that appeared to belong to Guzman, who has not been seen in public in more than 10 years. More than 18,500 people have died in political violence since the Shining Path began its insurgency in May 1980.\r\n'),(1406,2,'The dollar climbed to recent highs against several major currencies Monday in choppy domestic dealings after posting gains earlier in Europe despite concerted central bank intervention. Gold prices fell sharply. The dollar reached its highest point since last October against the British pound and West German mark. It reached its highest point since last August against the French franc and Italian lira. Led by West Germany\'s central Bundesbank, intervention began early in the European trading session. West Germany, which stepped in sporadically to sell dollars throughout last week, was accompanied by the central banks of Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium, dealers in Europe said. The Federal Reserve also was believed to have sold dollars, but the U.S. currency continued to resist the downward pressure. ``It\'s a general feeling that U.S. interest rates are going higher and that there is progress in the trade deficit,\'\' one London trader said in explaining the dollar\'s apparent strength in the face of intervention. If the Federal Reserve pushes up interest rates to keep the economy from overheating, dollar securities would become more attractive to foreign investors. Earl Johnson, a vice president at Harris Trust and Savings Bank in Chicago, said the total amount of dollars sold during the interventions was rumored to be in the neighborhood of $1 billion, which he characterized as not particularly excessive considering the number of banks involved. Traders in New York said the market was buffeted throughout the session by mixed messages regarding the level of the U.S. currency. ``There were rumors to the effect that the Bundesbank is not looking for an appreciation of the mark, that the Bank of Japan and the (Fed) are happy with the level of the dollar,\'\' said John McCarthy, a vice president and trader at Irving Trust Co. But on the bearish side, McCarthy cited former White House economic adviser Martin Feldstein\'s prediction that the dollar would trade at 100 Japanese yen within three years. ``When you get these arbitrary statements, people get positioned badly and they bail out of the market,\'\' McCarthy said. ``It was a yo-yo day where people were caught both ways.\'\' Traders said they expected some skittishness in the market ahead of the government\'s release on Friday of the merchandise trade report for May. In Tokyo, where trading ends before Europe\'s business day begins, the dollar rose 1.36 yen to a closing 133.33 yen. Later, in London, it was quoted at the lower rate of 132.96 yen. In New York the dollar closed at 133.07 yen, down from 133.29 yen on Friday. The dollar appreciated against the British pound. In London, it cost $1.6900 to buy one pound, cheaper than Friday\'s $1.7015. In New York, one pound fetched $1.6925, less expensive than $1.6996 on Friday. Other late dollar rates in New York, compared with late Friday: 1.8423 West German marks, up from 1.8415; 1.5305 Swiss francs, down from 1.5325; 6.2065 French francs, up from 6.1945; 1,367.25 Italian lire, up from 1,364.50; and 1.2072 Canaidan dollars, down from 1.2091. Other late dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Friday: 1.8460 West German marks, up from 1.8378; 1.5350 Swiss francs, up from 1.5295; 6.2080 French francs, up from 6.1820; 2.0750 Dutch guilders, up from 2.0605; 1,364.50 Italian lire, up from 1,355.50; and 1.2082 Canadian dollars, down from 1.2095. Gold prices fell in Europe after New York traders began selling platinum during the European afternoon. Dealers in Zurich said the downward slide appeared limited, and predicted that new buying would emerge. On New York\'s Commodity Exchange, gold closed at $434.60 a troy ounce, down from $439.10 on Friday. Republic National Bank of New York said gold was bid at $434.50 a troy ounce as of 4 p.m. EDT, down from $439 late Friday. In London, gold finished at a bid price of $435.10 a troy ounce, down from late Friday\'s $438.50, while in Zurich, the bid price was $435.50, down from $439.50 Friday. Earlier in Hong Kong, gold rose 96 cents to close at a bid $442.04. Silver on New York\'s Comex finished at $6.937 a troy ounce, down from $7 on Friday. In London the metal was quoted at a late bid price of $6.94 a troy ounce, down from Friday\'s $7.01.\r\n'),(1407,2,'Japan\'s Cabinet will slow the growth of military spending under a new five-year defense plan, Defense Agency officials said today. Analysts say the new plan, which is to be approved Thursday, follows Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu\'s support of easing military spending in keeping with the collapse of Communism in Europe. Defense Agency officials and senior lawmakers of Kaifu\'s governing Liberal Democratic Party have opposed a sharp cut, contending the reduction in tensions has not yet extended to the Far East. Analysts say the new plan is only a provisional measure. Critics maintain that it does not go far enough in reducing Japan\'s defense spending. During the current $138 billion five-year plan, which ends in March, spending increases averaged 5.4 percent a year. The new plan envisions spending of $170.68 billion for 1991-1995, with an average annual increase of less than 3 percent, agency officials said today, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Defense Agency insists it needs at least $175.86 billion to meet 1976 guidelines stating that the Self-Defense Forces, Japan\'s military, should be capable of repulsing a ``limited, small-scale\'\' foreign attack. But Finance Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto insists the average annual growth of the defense budget should not exceed 3 percent, an agency official said. Japan also depends on a defense treaty with the United States, which in the past pressed this nation for bigger defense buildups. It now is seeking more Japanese funds to support the 50,000 U.S. troops based in Japan. A policy paper released by the National Security Council on Tuesday said, ``The world situation is heading in desirable directions...and the possibility of a large-scale military conflict is lessening.\'\' Last week, Kaifu said in Parliament that he planned to restore Japan\'s self-imposed defense spending ceiling of 1 percent of its gross national product. The 1 percent ceiling, imposed in 1976, was eliminated in 1987 by the administration of Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who actively promoted the strengthening and modernization of the Self-Defense Forces. The new plan has generated domestic criticism for not cutting defense spending more. ``The rest of the world, including the United States, is revising its security policies to respond to the new world order,\'\' said Kazuhisa Ogawa, a political analyst. ``But unfortunately, Japan is still sticking with the conventional stance of only seeing the Soviet Union as a potential enemy and following what the United States wants Japan to do,\'\' he said\r\n'),(1408,2,'Scientists injected 2,200 corn stalks with a microbe effective against the destructive European corn borer Thursday in the first approved outdoor test of a genetically engineered ``plant vaccine.\'\' Environmental groups did not oppose the tests, which were approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture. The tests of the Cxc-Bt at the federal experimental station here are the first approved of a genetically altered ``plant vaccine,\'\' said Peter Carlson, chief scientist of Crop Genetics International, which developed the biological pesticide. Cxc-Bt was also injected into an acre of corn owned by Crop Genetics on Maryland\'s Eastern Shore, a company spokesman said. Only one other genetically engineered crop protector, Frostban, a frost-inhibiting microbe, has been approved for field testing by the EPA. ``I think the result could be reduced use of chemicals for crop protection,\'\' Carlson said. He said that would be ``good for farming, good for the environment and good for the food supply.\'\' The corn borer, a moth larva introduced to the United States in 1908, is one of agriculture\'s most destructive pests, attacking about 200 plant species, Crop Genetics said. It costs American farmers $400 million a year, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. The Audubon Society and Environmental Defense Fund took a wait-and-see attitude. The important question is whether testing and regulation will be adequate because Cxc-Bt is just the beginning of a rush of perhaps hundreds of similiar products, said Maureen Hinkle, the society\'s director of agriculture policy. Carlson said the main purpose of the test is to determine whether the pesticide will spread from plant to plant, an undesireable effect. The microbe works by attacking the alkaline stomach of corn borers, giving them ulcers. It doesn\'t affect humans, according to researchers. In previous laboratory experiments, the microbe killed the borers in petrie dishes and sickened them when tested in a greenhouse, the company said. Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Washington-based Foundation on Economic Trends, said the pesticide hasn\'t been shown to work in greenhouse tests and has lowered corn yields during some tests.\r\n'),(1409,2,'Negotiators for Nicaragua\'s Sandinista government and the Contra rebels started a second day of meetings today in the capital in an effort to end the nation\'s 6-year-old war. After a brief round of talks Friday night, the first ever in Managua between the U.S.-supported rebels and Sandinista leaders, the two groups met this morning for more extensive discussions. The meeting started at 9 a.m. (11 a.m. EDT) and was expected to last for about 12 hours. Forty high-level Contra officials, some in Managua for the first time since 1979, came ``in search of what (they) tried to attain for many years ... democracy and liberty for the Nicaraguan people,\'\' Adolfo Calero, head of the rebels\' Nicaraguan Resistance, told a news conference. Earlier, he told reporters at Sandino International Airport that the Contra leaders\' presence in Managua ``is a triumph\'\' for their cause. But Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, the Sandinistas\' main bargainer, said, ``The victory is when we reach a definitive cease-fire. It doesn\'t involve mounting a publicity show, but of complying\'\' with a preliminary peace plan signed March 23. The talks mark the first time since the war began that the Sandinistas have allowed rebel leaders to openly come to Managua. They are designed to move the two sides closer to halting the fighting that has claimed more than 26,000 lives since it began in November 1981, according to the government. Agreement on details of the truce was reached during talks that concluded Friday in the southern border post of Sapoa, 90 miles from Managua. The two sides in those talks issued a statement that said ``considerable progress\'\' had been made in narrowing their differences and that additional discussions would be held. The talks were called for in the preliminary peace plan. As part of that agreement, a 60-day cease-fire went into effect on April 1 to give both sides time to work out a lasting peace. But the two sides were unable to agree on important issues such as verification that the Contra fighters have moved into seven designated cease-fire zones, how the rebels would be resupplied, and if they should be allowed to keep their weapons. ``We will try to seek mechanisms in order to guarantee physical and moral security for our combatants,\'\' said Azucena Ferry, a member of the rebel directorate. Under the agreement, the Contras were supposed to have gathered in the zones by Friday, but there was no indication that occurred. The Sandinistas, in return, were to have released 700 political prisoners, allowed humanitarian aid for the rebels and permitted the insurgents to send representatives to take part in internal political discussions. The Contra leaders arrived more than four hours late on a commercial flight from San Jose, Costa Rica, and relatives gathered at the airport to greet them. Violetta Chamorro, the co-owner of the opposition newspaper La Prensa, waited to see her son, Contra leader Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, returning to Managua for the first time since 1986. Earlier, her newspaper\'s building was the target of a protest by about 300 teen-agers who pelted the building with rocks to protest the publication\'s pro-rebel stand. The demonstrators said they belonged to a group called Sandinista Youth. Witnesses who insisted on anonymity said a young man was slightly injured by a pail thrown from the roof. The Interior Ministry immediately banned all demonstrations and alcohol sales around the airport and hotel where the Contras were staying and closed the main road to the airport. Contra leaders claim they have about 10,000 rebels under arms. The Sandinistas claim they have an armed force of 300,000 men and women, including an 80,000-man army. The cease-fire was called for under a Central American peace plan signed by five Central American presidents last August.\r\n'),(1410,2,'Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said today that a wave of public ``retribution\'\' against groups whose problems are seen as their own doing, including smokers and drunken drinkers, could spread to AIDS victims by the next decade. ``Such a response would be tragic, but not unexpected to the health profession,\'\' Koop said. He cited the recent passing of laws to segregate smokers and public ``retribution against drunk drivers, teenagers who become pregnant, drug addicts and wife beaters.\'\' The anti-smoking attitude, he said, is being expressed in the adoption of laws setting up no-smoking areas in restaurants and banning smoking from entire office buildings and workplaces. ``These are examples of public retribution exercised against smokers,\'\' he said, also telling his audience, ``Most Americans would like to see all smokers stop.\'\' And he said it is possible that the American people, ``already traveling the road of retribution,\'\' will extend that retribution against AID victims in the 1990s, ``when the annual health bill for the disease reaches $5 billion.\'\' He did not say what retribution might be taken against people suffering from the fatal disease. The challenge to health professionals, he said, will be to move reaction to more responsive, productive and tolerant attitudes toward those with AIDS. The surgeon general commented in a speech after reeceiving an honorary fellowship from the American College of Legal Medicine. AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is a contagious disease that attacks the body\'s immune system, rendering it incapable of resisting other diseases and infections. The virus most often is spread through close contact with blood, blood products or semen from infected persons. The incurable condition is believed caused by an unusual virus, now called human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, discovered in France and the United States. Its chief victims have been homosexual men and intravenous drug users, although a small percentage of cases are attributed to transfusions of contaminated blood, heterosexual contact and spread from infected pregnant women to their offspring. As of July 4, AIDS had been diagnosed in 66,464 Americans, of whom more than half, or 37,535 have died since June 1981, according to the CDC. No one is known to have recovered from AIDS.\r\n'),(1411,2,'The complete works of filmmaker Milos Forman, Oscar-winning director of ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo\'s Nest\'\' and ``Amadeus,\'\' are being bought for distribution in Czechoslovakia 20 years after he left his native land. A report in Friday\'s Communist Party daily newspaper Rude Pravo announced the purchase, confirming rumors in Prague that Forman movies such as ``Hair\'\' finally will be seen in the country where he spent his first 36 years. ``It is great that they will show his films at last, I just don\'t know why they couldn\'t do so before,\'\' actress Vera Kresadlova, Forman\'s first wife and mother of his twin sons, told The Associated Press by phone. ``I guess they finally realized that if Milos `walks\' the streets of Prague again, it doesn\'t have to cause a riot.\'\' A Prague film critic who asked to remain anonymous welcomed the news and opined it indicated that ``those friends and colleagues of his (Forman\'s) who managed to keep the lid on his work for a long time are finally retiring.\'\' Forman\'s first films were made in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, including ``Fireman\'s Ball,\'\' which is enjoying another run in Prague right now, according to Rude Pravo. Forman moved to the United States in 1968, when Warsaw Pact tanks ended the ``Prague Spring\'\' reforms, and started his second career with ``Taking Off\'\' in 1971. But it was ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo\'s Nest\'\' that brought him worldwide fame, winning five Oscars and becoming a symbol of artistic skill for Czechoslovaks who were not able to see the film officially. In 1977, Forman was given American citizenship and went on to make ``Hair\'\' and ``Ragtime.\'\'Neither was purchased by Czechoslovakia\'s state-run film distribution firms. With the spread of video in the 1980s, bootleg copies spread on the black market in Czechoslovakia. Forman returned to Czechoslovakia in 1983 to shoot ``Amadeus\'\' in Prague. The film was shown in 1986 as Czechoslovakia\'s most other famous exile in the United States, tennis star Martina Navratilova, returned to her native land to play in the Federation Cup tournament. In 1987, Forman went to Moscow\'s international film festival as signs emerged that the Soviet drive for more openness in the arts was breaking down some previous tabus in Czechoslovakia\'s state-run arts.\r\n'),(1412,2,'Federal parole officers are recommending that former U.S. District Judge Walter L. Nixon, who was impeached and removed from office, be sent back to prison for carrying guns on a turkey hunt. Herb Lepchenske, one of two officers who conducted a parole revocation hearing Monday, said he will recommend Nixon serve 10 months of the remaining three years of his five-year sentence. Nixon, 61, was paroled in November 1989 on a conviction of lying to a federal grand jury. The seven-member Parole Commission in Atlanta will review the recommendation, and could give Nixon as little as a reprimand or as much as the full remaining three years of the sentence. At the hearing, Nixon said he was carrying guns in cases when he was arrested April 25 for hunting wild turkey over a baited field. Nixon, who is appealing his conviction on that state offense, testified he had changed his mind about hunting that day and never took the guns out. Chester Diaz, a state Department of Wildlife investigator, testified that Nixon asked him to pretend he wasn\'t carrying a rifle and a shotgun. Nixon knew the guns he had were illegal for a felon and asked if he could switch them for an old-fashioned muzzleloader, Diaz said. ``I told him `No, sir,\'\'\' said Diaz. ``I\'m very, very remorseful for what I\'ve done,\'\' Nixon said Monday. ``I haven\'t slept much since this happened.\'\'\r\n'),(1413,2,'The Associated Press poll on homelessness was conducted by telephone Dec. 5-9 among a random sample of 1,004 adults in the contiguous United States. Interviewing was done by ICR Survey Research Group of Media, Pa. The results were weighted to adjust for variations in the sample. The poll had a three-point margin of sampling error, meaning that 19 of 20 times its findings should be within three points of the result if every adult American were asked the same questions. The error margin is larger for subgroups. There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions. These are the questions in this poll; because of rounding, sums may not total 100: 1. Is your knowledge of the homeless a result of something you have seen or dealt with in person, or is it just based on news reports and word of mouth? In person: 45 percent. Word of mouth: 54 percent. Don\'t know or no answer: 2 percent. 2. Which of the following statements best reflects your attitude toward the homeless in the United States today? - The homeless themselves are mainly at fault because of their unwillingness to work or their behavior, such as alcohol or drug use: 17 percent. - Our society is mainly at fault because we do not provide sufficient housing for them: 20 percent. - Neither the homeless nor society is mainly at fault because they become homeless through tough breaks or bad economic luck: 41 percent. - (volunteered answer) Combination of both homeless and society: 17 percent. - Don\'t know or no answer: 5 percent. 3. Do you think federal spending on helping the homeless should be increased, decreased, or remain the same? Increased: 58 percent. Decreased: 7 percent. Remain the same: 23 percent. DK-NA: 12 percent. (For those who said increased) Would you be willing to pay more taxes for that? Yes: 75 percent. No: 22 percent. DK-NA: 3 percent. 4. I\'m going to ask you to rate the chances that you or a member of your family could become homeless in the coming year. Do you personally feel the chances are ... Very likely: 4 percent. Somewhat likely: 11 percent. Somewhat unlikely: 16 percent. Not at all likely: 67 percent. DK-NA: 3 percent. 5. Do you know someone who has become homeless in the last year? Yes: 15 percent. No: 85 percent.\r\n'),(1414,2,'Hundreds of masked youths battled police and set 30 cars ablaze Monday as police in Paris blocked the route of more than 100,000 students demanding better conditions at their high schools. It was the worst violence in a month of nationwide student protests. Riot police fired water cannons and hundreds of rounds of tear gas at demonstrators, who pelted officers with rocks and bottles, smashed windows and looted stores. Police headquarters said 104 officers were hurt, including 18 hospitalized. Police reported 52 arrests in Paris, and a dozen youths arrested for vandalism during a protest march in Montbelaird, eastern France. In all, about 100 vehicles were damaged in Paris, police said. About 150,000 students took part in demonstrations elsewhere in France. President Francois Mitterrand promised steps would be taken to address student demands. They want more government spending to improve security, upgrade substandard facilities, modernize curricula and hire more teachers. The main throng of protesters in Paris was orderly, but hundreds of youths on the fringes ran wild. Many rioters wore masks and carried clubs. Journalists were beaten. Mitterrand and Education Minister Lionel Jospin met with a delegation of student leaders and promised an emergency plan in response to demands for better education and safety on campus. Monday\'s march began at the Place de la Bastille in eastern Paris, where 201 years ago rioters stormed the prison to start the French Revolution. In the Montparnasse neighborhood of southern Paris, gangs started smashing windows and robbing street vendors about two hours after the march started. Police Chief Pierre Verbrugghe, who deployed 5,000 officers, told students they would not be allowed to follow their planned route and finish their march on the Champs Elysees. Many students obeyed the orders, but a few hundred youths squared off against police at the Alma bridge. Police fired water cannons when they tried to cross, scattering the rioters who hurled rocks and trash. The youths regrouped and repeated attempts to break through police line. Vandals set fire to trash and dismantled bus stops. Jospin promised more discussions with student leaders Tuesday and throughout the week, and said such talks should be held on the local level as well. Organizers claimed 200,000 students joined the Paris march, but other observers estimated the turnout at closer to 100,000. It was the first time students from the provinces were urged to join a march in the capital. Those who couldn\'t come to Paris staged their own protests in dozens of smaller cities. Dozens of previous student marches and rallies across France over the past four weeks have been peaceful, except for sporadic vandalism blamed by student leaders on provocateurs. On Nov. 5, an estimated 150,000 students participated in marches nationwide. The protests began with student strikes last month in the tough northern suburbs of Paris after the gang rape of a girl in a school lavatory and assaults on teachers. Protesters have complained of drug trafficking, theft and extortion on campus. Most protesters come from relatively low-income families, and many are children of immigrants. They view education as the key to advancement, and resent a seemingly second-class treatment of schools in the high-rise slums that ring many major cities. ``I\'m from a bourgeois neighborhood, so our problems with security and infrastructure are not that great,\'\' said marcher Fabien Liabastre, 16, of Sceaux. ``But even our school has wire hanging out of the wall and water leaks throughout the ceiling.\'\' The students have broad public support and the government has proposed increasing the education budget by 9 percent in 1991. But students worry that improvements won\'t come quickly enough to help them win university admission or decent jobs.\r\n'),(1415,2,'The Food and Drug Administration today announced new drug approval procedures to speed development of treatments for life-threatening diseases like AIDS. In essense, the new regulation would create a mechanism for the FDA to work with drug companies in the earliest stages of a drug\'s development to refine preliminary tests in animals and humans to get the most useful data in the shortest possible time. While that clearly could shorten the approval time for drugs that subsequently prove to be safe and effective, in most cases it would require a larger financial commitment from drug developers long before they have any realistic assessment of whether the drug will eventually pan out and thus enable them to recover their research investment. FDA Commissioner Frank E. Young acknowledged at a news conference that the revised procedures would show results only if private pharmaceutical companies take advantage of new opportunities to get the FDA involved in earlier stages of drug development. The word ``may\'\' is scattered throughout the proposal, establishing clearly that it creates new options for drug companies rather than requirements in the drug approval process. The regulation is being published in the Federal Register as an ``interim rule\'\' with a 60-day public comment period, meaning it is effective immediately. Young said repeatedly that he did not want to ``overpromise\'\' the likelihood of dramatic changes in early development of drugs for AIDS, cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Nonetheless, he defended the agency against charges by AIDS activists that the new regulations are politically motivated to help the campaign of Vice President George Bush _ who has headed the Reagan administration\'s effort on easing regulatory red tape at the FDA and other federal agencies. Young pointed out that Bush and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis agreed at their first debate that they are in essential agreement on how to cope with the AIDS epidemic, including support for federal anti-discrimination to protect people carrying the AIDS virus. The FDA commissioner used two analogies in explaining his view of how the new regulations would work: as a college professor giving students a clear idea of the answers he was looking for on an essay test question, rather than leaving for the students to guess what was on the professor\'s mind; and of the agency being more like a baseball catcher _ ``helping call the signals\'\' _ rather than strictly as an umpire _ ``just calling safe and out.\'\' In simplified terms, the new procedures encourage drug developers to meet with FDA regulators when they are getting ready to go into Phase II testing _ after preliminary animal and human tests have established the safety of a drug. The idea is that the FDA would help the companies design studies specifically greared to answering the scientific questions about a drug that the agency considers most pressing. If that happens, and the Phase II tests clearly establish that the drug is effective, the final step before approval _ Phase III testing on reasonably large numbers of patients _ could be sharply curtailed or perhaps even bypassed. Emphasizing that the new procedures would be used only for drugs designed to treat life-threatening diseases where no effective therapy is available, Young said, ``a treatment could be approved even if some questions reamin to be answered by researchers.\'\' ``There might be questions about the very best way to use a drug, the lowest dose that was effective, for example,\'\' he said. ``Such questions could be studied after the drug was approved and would not delay its approval.\'\'\r\n'),(1416,2,'U.S. Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday adopted their first comprehensive guidelines on human sexuality, portraying it in exalting terms and calling for it to be taught in Catholic schools. Against some opposition and attempts at delay, the document was approved by a strong voice vote by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. It says sexual education should be taught in schools and parishes as well as in families, a provision strongly opposed by several bishops who said many parents want such education kept in the home. One said families might remove their children from Catholic schools if sex education is required. Describing sexuality as a ``wonderful gift,\'\' the bishops say they approach the subject with a ``deep and abiding sense of appreciation, wonder and respect.\'\' They add: ``We are dealing with a divine gift, a primal dimension of each person, a mysterious blend of spirit and body, which shares in God\'s own creative love and life. ... ``Sexuality is a dimension of one\'s restless heart, which continually yearns for interpersonal communion, glimpsed and experienced to varying degrees in this life, ultimately finding full oneness only in God, here, and hereafter.\'\' The 185-page document, called ``Human Sexuality: A Catholic Perspective for Education and Lifelong Learning,\'\' was developed by a special task force, including experts in various fields. Auxiliary Bishop William Newman of Baltimore, said the effort was to present the subject in ``positive terms and with flow.\'\' Much of it has a lilting sweep in phrasing. ``We are created not as angels or pure spirits, but as human beings, embodied and sexual,\'\' the document says. ``The gift of sexuality involves the whole person because it permeates all facets of the human personality: the physical, the psycho-emotional, the intellectual, the spiritual and ethical and the social,\'\' the bishops say. ``Sexuality prompts each of us from within, calling us to personal as well as spiritual growth and drawing us out from self to interpersonal bonds and commitments with others, both women and men.\'\' The document affirms the church\'s traditional teaching that condones intercourse only in marriage. ``Like all our human powers and freedoms, sexuality can be channeled for good or ill ... can be abused, sometimes intentionally, sometimes through immaturity or ignorance... ``Given how important sexuality is ... such errors in judgment frequently have a profound impact for ill on ne\'s psyche, human commitments and relationship with God,\'\' it says. Bishop Kenneth E. Untener of Saginaw, Mich. noted the document mentions that some dissent from the church ban against contraception and urges they pray and reconsider. He said they might respond, ``We will if you will.\'\' Refering to widespread disagreement with the contraception ban among Catholics, he urged listening to them. ``If we don\'t, it will cause great damage to the church at large,\'\' he told fellow bishops, saying the church\'s credibility depended on it. Some bishops complained that many parents wanted sexual education kept in the home, and not taught in school. Auxiliary Bishop Austin Vaughan of New York, protested that the document had been shaped without wide parental consultation. He sought unsuccessfully to get it tabled. He said if sexual education is required, many parents ``will pull their children out of Catholic schools.\'\' Considerable debate came on a section dealing with homosexuality, and a move was made to insert a 1986 Vatican declaration that homosexuality is an ``objective disorder\'\' involving a tendency to moral evil. However, Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco, said that the Vatican\'s philosophical analysis had been misinterpreted to mean ``the person was intrinsically disordered and intrinsically bad.\'\' The matter was put in a footnote, along with an explanation of the distinction between the technical and personal implications. ``Homosexual orientation, because it is not freely chosen, is not sinful,\'\' an added line said. The portion on teaching about sexuality focuses on the different stages of life, childhood, adolescence and adulthood. The bishops, on the third day of their four-day annual meeting, also approved a major aid program to long-suppressed churches of Eastern Europe. A national collection was to be made for three, and perhaps five years, to fund the operation. Asked how much was expected from such fund drives, Archbishop John L. May of St. Louis told a news conference,``Millions.\'\' He said other special drives have yielded more than $10 million annually.\r\n'),(1417,2,'The stock market posted a modest advance today, with prices extending the day\'s gains in the final hour of trading. But activity overall was relatively subdued as worries about rising interest rates tended to restrain the advance. The stock market has labored for much of this year under the weight of lackluster corporate earnings reports and rising interest rates. Interest rates have been rising in recent days in anticipation of this week\'s government auction of $30 billion in new securities. Higher rates make yields on short-term securities more competitive with those on stocks and could hurt the corporate earnings outlook. But even as rates edged higher again today, stock prices gained ground and managed to maintain their tiny gains through the day. In the final hour of trading, prices pushed even higher.\r\n'),(1418,2,'Iran appealed Monday for medical supplies to treat earthquake victims, and countries worldwide answered with tons of foreign relief shipments and millions in cash donations. Iran\'s U.N. ambassador, Kamal Kharrazi, acknowledged help from the United States and said the disaster ``may create a better atmosphere for relations between Iranian and American peoples.\'\' A private American relief plane was one of at least 68 that landed in Tehran on Sunday and early Monday, bringing the first overt shipment of U.S. aid to Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran also has accepted $291,000 in U.S. government relief in the form of blankets, tents, water jugs and other supplies. A separate Red Cross charter flight left Washington carrying supplies donated by the U.S. government. Australia, Belgium, Libya and North Korea were among 26 countries announcing or sending aid. Saudi Arabia, which severed relations with Iran in April 1988, said it would send 40 planeloads of supplies in the next few days. Even Iraq, which fought Iran in the 1980-88 Persian Gulf war, offered help. British author Salman Rushdie, who Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered killed for a novel many Moslems considered offensive, pledged $8,650 for quake survivors, the British newspaper The Independent reported. The powerful quake rocked northern Iran on Thursday, killing an estimated 50,000 people and leaving at least 500,000 homeless, the Iranian U.N. mission said Monday. The mission released its latest figures with an urgent appeal for antibiotics, surgical gloves, X-ray equipment and other medical equipment. In Paris, UNESCO on Monday announced the start of a campaign to raise funds to rebuild schools wrecked by the earthquake. The director-general of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Federico Mayor, said about half of those rendered homeless by the quake were children. Communist North Korea announced Monday that it had sent a 58-member medical team and pledged $1 million in aid to victims of the quake. The Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Tokyo, said part of the aid shipment was sent on the same plane Monday as a medical team from the North Korean Red Cross. The Australian government pledged a $790,000 donation, and Belgium pledged $425,000. Sweden on Monday donated another $2.2 million above the $750,000 it pledged Friday. The money will be handled through the Red Cross, it said. Libya sent a planeload of relief aid to Tehran to help victims, the official Libyan news agency JANA reported Monday. The shipment, which arrived Sunday, contained food, medicine, tents and blankets, said the brief dispatch, monitored in Rome. An AmeriCares\' chartered cargo jet carrying 42 tons of U.S. aid _ including bandages, antiseptic burn cream, and tents _ arrived in Tehran on Sunday. Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic ties since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Islamic militants, who held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days in 1979 and 1980.\r\n'),(1419,2,'Previous joint excavations in Laos were in February 1985, February 1986 and in May. ``A total...\'\' 16th graf\r\n'),(1420,2,'A hunter was charged Wednesday with accidentally killing a man he mistook for a turkey. Game wardens said the victim, Charles Boyer, was crouching near some bushes and calling turkeys when he was shot in the forehead. Boyer wore clothes with blue-gray parches that resemebled turkey heads, said Lorraine Yocum, a law enforcement supervisor for the state Game Commission. Troy Alan Moore, hunting with a separate party about 90 yards away, saw blue-gray spots moving and fired at them, grazing Boyer above the right eyebrow, Ms. Yocum said. Boyer, 43, of New Galilee, lost a lot of blood during the 40 minutes it took paramedics to get to the remote spot on a timber company\'s property in Deerfield Township, she said. He died shortly after they arrived. Moore, 24, of Tidioute, was booked on a misdemeanor charge of killing a human being while hunting with a firearm. Arraignment was set for Nov. 16. Moore faces a fine of up to $5,000 and a 10-year revocation of his hunting license if convicted. Unlike deer hunters, turkey hunters in the state aren\'t required to wear bright orange because it alerts the birds, Ms. Yocum said. Since Pennsylvania\'s small-game season opened Saturday, three people have died in turkey hunting accidents, the Game Commission said. A man who in 1988 shot a woman he mistook for a deer was acquitted earlier this month by a Superior Court jury in Bangor, Maine.\r\n'),(1421,2,'Sears, Roebuck and Co. said Thursday it had agreed to sell Midland International, an electronics division of Western Auto Supply Co., to Glenayre Electronics Ltd. of Vancouver, Canada, for $35 million. Sears acquired Western Auto, a Kansas City-based auto-parts and hardware chain, earlier this year for about $400 million. The Midland sale was subject to a definitive agreement being reached. Midland is a major supplier of equipment for the wireless communications industry with facilities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong, Sears stated. Midland is a significant supplier of land mobile radios and associated equipment to Glenayre, according to L. Claude Simmonds, Glenayre\'s chairman and chief executive. Midland\'s senior management will remain in place, Simmonds said.\r\n'),(1422,2,'An Iranian official said both presidential candidates have asked Iran for help securing the release of hostages held in Lebanon. Hussein Sheikholeslam, a deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, spoke at a news conference late Thursday in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, where he stopped en route to Kenya. He said Republican candidate George Bush and Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis made contact with Iran through third parties, including governments and individuals. Bush has denied this, and officials in Washington insist the United States has no direct or indirect contacts with the Iranians. Sheikholeslam said the identity of the intermediaries is ``a touchy question\'\' and that he did not want to get involved ``in the election games of the United States.\'\' But he said the contacts were not at the level of those conducted in 1986 that led to the Irangate scandal, in which arms were secretly sold to Iran. He did not elaborate. Sheikholeslam stressed that normalizing relations with the United States should be separated from the issue of the hostages held in Lebanon. Iranian-backed Shiite Moslem militants are believed to hold most of the 14 Westerners missing in Lebanon. Nine of the captives are American. The longest held is American Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent of The Associated Press. He was kidnapped March 16, 1985. Sheikholeslam said Iran also was concerned about four Iranians who have been missing in Lebanon for six years. He said that while Iran was appealing for the release of its nationals, it was not necessarily linking their fate to that of the 14 Westerners. Former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani Sadr, who lives in exile in Paris, said recently that Richard Lawless, a former U.S. official, negotiated with Iranian government representatives on behalf of Bush for the release of the American hostages. In Washington on Friday, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater denied again that the U.S. government was negotiating with Iran. Fitzwater took issue with a report Friday in The Nation, a Jerusalem weekly, that talks on the hostages were held but recessed because of news leaks. ``No one is authorized to talk for the (U.S.) government,\'\' he said. ``As we have said before, there are all kinds of people around the world freelancing on this situation.\'\' Fitzwater also predicted more such stories, although he did not say why. ``Suffice it to say, we find them (the news reports) mostly detrimental,\'\' he said. ``What they do is build up people\'s expectations when they are not warranted.\'\'\r\n'),(1423,2,'A federal judge permanently banned racial discrimination in the city\'s public schools in his final order in a 16-year-old desegregation case. The order Thursday from U.S. District Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. barred ``creating, promoting or maintaining racial segregation in any school or other facility in the Boston school system.\'\' In a 1974 ruling on a lawsuit brought by black parents, Garrity found the city\'s public schools were segregated. He ordered them desegregated, and the resultant busing of students touched off years of turmoil. Garrity monitored the city\'s compliance with his order until 1987, when a federal appeals court ruled that the schools were desegregated and gave control over student assignment back to the School Committee. Garrity continued to monitor school administration and operations, however. He said Thursday\'s order would be his last. Perhaps the most controversial part of the four-page ruling was a decree that teacher layoffs must follow court-ordered racial guidelines rather than be based on seniority alone. That order, which means teachers and administrators must include 25 percent blacks and 10 percent other minorities, is to remain until ``seniority would be a racially neutral standard,\'\' he said. Achieving a fully desegregated faculty and staff ``will be an important milestone on the long road to affording equal educational opportunity to all students in Boston\'s public schools,\'\' Garrity wrote. More than 200 teachers are expected to be laid off _ nearly 800 have received layoff warnings _ before the next school year because of budget limitations. The Boston Teachers Union\'s contract calls for layoffs strictly on the basis of seniority. Union President Edward Doherty has said the union would appeal any ruling that continued minority quotas, which he said would mean many white teachers with 20 or more years of experience would lose their jobs. But lawyers on both sides of the desegregation case praised Garrity\'s final judgment. ``The order is consistent with affirmative action policies the School Committee has in place and clarifies some issues that need clarification concerning layoffs,\'\' said Henry Dinger, a lawyer for the School Committee. Robert Pressman, a lawyer for black plaintiffs, said the ruling shows that Garrity ``studied the papers carefully and manifests his continuing steadfastness in protecting the rights of the plaintiff class.\'\'\r\n'),(1424,2,'Occidental Petroleum Corp. has agreed to acquire the plastics manufacturer Cain Chemical Inc. in a transaction valued at $2.2 billion, the companies said. Under terms of a definitive merger agreement, Occidental will pay $1.25 billion cash and will assume about $830 million in debt. Including Cain preferred stock, the deal has an indicated value of about $2.2 billion. Houston-based Cain will continue to operate with its present employees as a separate, wholly owned subsidiary of Occidental, according to the agreement, which has been approved by a majority of Cain shareholders. The transaction will result in a pretax gain of $120 million for Chase Manhattan Corp., which has had a stake in Cain since its formation. In addition, about 43 percent of the proceeds of the sale will be distributed to Cain employees, the company said in a statement. Cain, a closely held concern, was formed in March 1987 by a group headed by Gordon Cain. The group purchased and integrated chemical operations from several major chemical companies including PPG Industries Inc., E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., and ICI Americas Inc. Cain now has seven plants on the Gulf Coast of Texas and is the nation\'s fifth-largest maker of ethylene, a component of PVC plastic. The merger will make Occidental the country\'s third-largest ethylene producer. Occidental Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Armand Hammer credited Cain with having built ``a strong position in petrochemicals with its large, cost efficient ethylene plants and its top quality high density polyethlyene facilities and products.\'\' He said he expects the acquisition to ``significantly improve Occidental\'s net income and cash flow\'\' in the long term. The acquisition, which is expected to be completed in early May, will bring Occidental\'s long-term debt to $6.34 billion, a spokesman said. Occidental is involved in businesses including oil, gas, chemicals, fertilizers, coal and meat products.\r\n'),(1425,2,'The Senate passed legislation today that would permit the death penalty for drug dealers convicted of murder, rejecting pleas that the measure would be a move toward ``reducing the civility\'\' of society. The election-year legislation was sent to the House on a 65-29 vote. The bill\'s fate is less certain in that chamber, where the House Judiciary Committee _ which will consider it _ has been hostile to capital punishment legislation in the past. ``Murder is murder, whether legal or illegal,\'\' said Sen. Dan Evans, R-Wash. ``We are reducing the civility and the compassion of our society.\'\' But Sen. Alfonse D\'Amato, R-N.Y., the bill\'s sponsor, said, ``I believe society has a right to say we are outraged at certain acts, and the death penalty is the appropriate penalty in these cases.\'\' Before final passage, lawmakers voted 66-28 to set aside a provision by Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., that would have limited the bill\'s capital punishment provisions to drug dealers who are convicted of killing law enforcement officers. On voice votes, they accepted a provision that would allow prison employees to refuse to participate in executions, and rejected language that would have required prisoners to be killed in public. Both measures were sponsored by Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore. On Thursday, the Senate voted 69-27 to shut off debate, ending a filibuster by opponents who had stalled a vote. ``I\'m not saying the death penalty will eliminate the drug problem, but I do think it will serve as a deterrent,\'\' said D\'Amato. But opponents decried the bill as election-year politics, saying it would do nothing to deter drug dealing and represented a cynical response to public demands to do something about illegal drugs. Evans referred to a similar bill proposed in 1986 and said: ``Once again, we\'re going for an election-year slam dunk on drugs. ... We\'re taking precipitous steps to indulge our own political vanity.\'\' The D\'Amato bill provides that the death penalty can be imposed on people who are convicted in federal courts of running a drug ring and who are then separately convicted of killing law enforcement officers or private citizens. Many states, including those with severe drug problems, already have the death penalty and it hasn\'t had much deterrent effect, opponents of the bill said. Before invoking cloture, the Senate voted 65-31 against an amendment that would have imposed a penalty of life imprisonment without parole, instead of the death penalty, for people convicted under the terms of D\'Amato\'s bill. D\'Amato\'s proposal was originally attached as an amendment to the Pentagon budget bill, but opponents filibustered and D\'Amato withdrew his proposal in return for a promise by Senate leaders to give him a vote on a separate bill. Supporters said the death penalty would deter drug kingpins. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said, ``To go on talking about a war on drugs and not commit ourselves to a death penalty for those who kill our law enforcement officers in that war is to make a mockery of saying we have a war on drugs.\'\' But Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., said, ``The evidence that the death penalty is a deterrent is just not there at all.\'\' Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., added that the death penalty provision could lead to the execution of innocent people. He cited a Stanford University study which said 350 people have been convicted of capital offenses in this century and then later found to be innocent. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, responded that there are enough safeguards in the legal system to protect innocent persons. ``Nobody should be able to kill our policemen without paying the ultimate price,\'\' he said. Also Thursday, the House Banking Committee approved legislation to make it more difficult for drug dealers and other criminals to hide their profits. The bill would require banks to file transaction reports with the government for all cashiers\' checks, money orders and travelers\' checks of $3,000 or more. Now, banks need to file such reports on transactions of $10,000 or more. New York Mayor Edward I. Koch, meanwhile, was proposing the creation of ``tent jails\'\' in Nevada to incarcerate convicted drug offenders and relieve prison overcrowding elsewhere. In an appearance before two House Armed Services subcommittees, Koch conceded that Nevada probably wouldn\'t think much of his idea.\r\n'),(1426,2,'Sen. Rudy Boschwitz apologized Friday for a letter sent to some Minnesota Jews on behalf of his unsuccessful re-election campaign suggesting his challenger was not a good Jew. ``I deeply regret having allowed the letter to be written and accept full responsibility for it,\'\' said Boschwitz, who is Jewish. Paul Wellstone, who upset the Republican senator in Tuesday\'s election, said he appreciated Boschwitz\'s remarks and accepted his apology. ``I think it should be the final word,\'\' said the senator-elect, who is also Jewish. The letter, written by two of Boschwitz\'s Jewish supporters and signed by them and 70 others, was printed on Boschwitz campaign stationery and mailed at campaign expense Nov. 1. ``Wellstone has no connection with the Jewish community or our communal life,\'\' the letter said. ``His children were brought up as non-Jews.\'\' The letter noted that Wellstone served as co-chairman of the Rev. Jesse Jackson\'s 1988 presidential campaign in Minnesota, and said, ``Jesse Jackson has embraced, literally and figuratively, Yasser Arafat, and has never repudiated that embrace.\'\' Moreover, Wellstone never disassociated himself from any of Jackson\'s policies, the letter said. The letter angered Wellstone\'s Jewish supporters, some of whom described it as an attempt to split the Jewish vote over the issue of Israel. Two days before the election, Wellstone said the letter was ``completely unforgivable.\'\' ``This is making an issue of the fact that we have an interreligious marriage,\'\' said Wellstone, whose wife is Christian. ``This is the most sensitive issue in the Jewish community there is.\'\' Boschwitz initially stood by the letter. But on Friday, after the Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported that the letter had generated angry discussion among Jews in Israel and the United States, the senator said he was sorry. ``Bringing Jews and non-Jews together has been an important element of my public service and private life,\'\' Boschwitz said. ``Others will judge over time whether I have made a positive contribution in this regard, but for the moment I simply reiterate my apology.\'\' Wellstone said Boschwitz\' statement showed a ``tremendous amount of sincerity and conviction.\'\' ``His remarks are powerful,\'\' Wellstone said. ``It was very hurtful to everybody in our family, but this is a wonderful statement, and I think it\'s in the past.\'\' Wellstone said he didn\'t believe the letter was the major reason why Boschwitz lost the election, but he said, ``In the end, it was very damaging for them.\'\'\r\n'),(1427,2,'An 11-year-old aviator who plans to emulate Charles Lindbergh\'s flight to Paris arrived in New York with a bit of a scare. Christopher Lee Marshall was piloting his Mooney 252 two-seater toward busy La Guardia Airport on Friday evening when the plane\'s electrical power _ and radio _ went dead. ``I thought we might get in trouble if we can\'t call the tower,\'\' Chris said later. But the power outage lasted only about 10 seconds and he landed safely. ``I thought it was neat to land at a big airport,\'\' the Oceano, Calif., boy said. Chris, who is accompanied by a former Navy pilot, hopped across the country from San Diego to Kerrville, Texas, then to St. Louis and New York. Today _ if the plane\'s electrical problems are sorted out _ he and his companion planned to head toward Europe. His flight plan calls for stops in Montreal, Greenland and Iceland. ``I want to show all other kids across America that if I can do this trip, they can do this trip,\'\' Chris said Friday at Lambert Airport in St. Louis before taking off for New York. Chris, the son of a commercial pilot, first took the controls of a plane at age 4, and began flying with an instructor at 7. Lindbergh flew from San Diego to St. Louis, then to New York before completing his 33{-hour, non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic to Paris in 1927. Last year, Chris became the youngest flier to cross the United States. Tony Aliengena, a 9-year-old from San Juan Capistrano, Calif., broke the record in April by making a California-to-Massachusetts round trip. Chris, who will be a fifth-grader this fall, said this trip would make him the world\'s youngest trans-Atlantic pilot. He is accompanied by Randy ``Duke\'\' Cunningham, 46, a retired commander at Miramar Naval Air Station, Calif., and Vietnam War pilot. Cunningham sits in the pilot\'s seat in the two-seat craft. Chris\' seat is boosted to window-level by a foam cushion. But Chris has done all of the flying, Cunningham said. The two flew to Texas in a borrowed plane, then traded it for a new aircraft that was built for the trans-Atlantic journey. Because Cunningham is limiting the boy\'s flying time to less than eight hours at a time, the flight will be stretched out over five days. ``He\'s doing good; he\'s a tiger,\'\' Cunningham said. ``He was sick on the flight from Texas, but he flew right through it. He\'s got around 270 hours of flying time in and he\'s very responsive. Tell him to do something and he does it.\'\' Chris\' mother, Gail Marshall, founded a company that raised money to pay for the flight.\r\n'),(1428,2,'Police on Friday sought a 12-year-old girl needing heart surgery and her mother, who authorities said abducted the girl from a hospital because the woman\'s religion forbids blood transfusions. The girl, Kimberly Winfield, was believed to have left Children\'s Memorial Hospital about 1 a.m. Thursday, said police Lt. Edmund Beazley. The mother, Caroline Winfield, called relatives to say she wanted to return her daughter, said Dave Schneidman, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. But she was afraid to surrender for fear of being prosecuted. Police obtained an arrest warrant for the 35-year-old mother on a charge of child abduction because Kimberly is a ward of the state, Beazley said. ``We\'re not real interested in catching the mother if she doesn\'t want to be caught, but we do want the child back so we can save the child\'s life,\'\' Schneidman said. Police and the state Department of Children and Family Services said they were reasonably certain the mother was responsible for the child\'s disappearance. ``There doesn\'t seem to be any doubt of it right now,\'\' Beazley said. ``Before the child was discovered missing, the mother had told relatives that she was going to take the child from the hospital because she did not approve of the surgery,\'\' said department spokesman Schneidman. Schneidman said the child needed open-heart surgery to survive. ``The prognosis is she has anywhere from a week to a month to live without the surgery,\'\' he said. However, Children\'s Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Jan Benzies said Kimberly, who was admitted Wednesday, was not critically ill. ``She was undergoing tests to determine the severity of her heart problem,\'\' the spokeswoman said. ``Her doctor does not believe her life is in immediate danger. ``However, it is clinically advisable that she be located and treated within a month,\'\' she said. No one at the hospital saw the mother or child leave, Beazley said. ``Apparently, she just got her dressed and walked out,\'\' he said. ``They were allowing the mother to stay in the room with her, which is pretty common with young children. The nurse came back to check on them and they were both gone.\'\' The mother is a Jehovah\'s Witness, Beazley said. Jehovah\'s Witnesses refuse blood transfusions as being against the teachings of the Bible. ``You can\'t do surgery without a transfusion of blood,\'\' Schneidman said. The Department of Children and Family Services waited about 34 hours after the disappearance to notify the press so police could check leads on Winfield\'s whereabouts, Schneidman said. Those leads were exhausted, he said. The agency was named temporary custodian of Kimberly and two brothers, ages 2 and 8, about a month ago because Winfield was unable to care for them, Schneidman said. ``They were living on the streets without proper housing or any evident means of support,\'\' Schneidman said. The boys, whose names were not released, are now living with their paternal grandmother in Chicago, Beazley said. A department caseworker noticed Kimberly was ill and took her to the hospital, Schneidman said. Larry Winfield, Kimberly\'s father, had been notified and was very concerned, Schneidman said. He maintains a permanent residence and is employed, but the mother and children have not lived with him for some time, Schneidman said.\r\n'),(1429,2,'Former Sen. Paula Hawkins of Florida, who has recovered from a back injury which threatened to make her an invalid, is feeling so good she\'s talking about running for elective office again. Mrs. Hawkins, who was Florida\'s most prominent Republican officeholder for more than a decade before her loss to former Gov. Bob Graham in the 1986 Senate race, said she would prefer staying in Florida to returning to Washington. ``I\'ve been elected three times in Florida statewide and people remember that,\'\' she said. ``I like serving.\'\' The Republican National Convention has been a coming out of sorts for the 61-year-old grandmother, who spent most of 1987 recovering from a series of operations to correct a chronic back problem. ``The voters did me a great favor,\'\' Mrs. Hawkins said. ``They said, `You need to get a new body.\'\'\'\r\n'),(1430,2,'On this island where fantasy has long dictated policy, reality is taking hold and may help improve relations with China and stimulate democratic change at home. The myth has long been that the ruling Nationalist Party, which retreated to Taiwan after losing a civil war to Communist forces in 1949, is still the legitimate government of China. That myth has long been used to justify the party\'s policy of no official contact with the rival government in Beijing. It also has long been used to justify the party\'s monopoly on political power. But events of the past week, culminating in the inaugural address of President Lee Teng-hui on Sunday, indicate the days of fantasy are drawing to a close. Lee was sworn in for a six-year term after being elected by the electoral college and stressed his commitment to democracy. The Nationalist government still calls itself the ``Republic of China\'\' and says reunification with the Chinese mainland is the ultimate goal. But on Wednesday, Hau said something no top official had previously acknowledged in public: The reality is that China today is ``one country with two governments.\'\' In his inauguration speech, Lee urged markedly improved relations with Beijing and ``channels of communication\'\' that could eventually lead to talks on reunification. In effect, Lee signaled a desire to end the 40-year-old hard-line policy toward the Chinese Communists known as the ``three nos\'\' _ no official contact, no negotiations and no compromise. There is a catch. The Nationalists want Beijing to renounce the threat of force against Taiwan, end its policy of isolating Taiwan diplomatically and scrap one-party Communist rule. China on Monday rejected such preconditions, saying Lee was ``ignoring the universally accepted fact that the People\'s Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing all Chinese people.\'\' While Taiwan does not expect an immediate breakthrough, its leaders hope relations will improve as civilian and business contacts expand. Indirect trade across the Taiwan Straits was $4 billion last year, and Taiwan residents made 1 million visits to the Chinese mainland since such travel was first allowed in late 1987. ``We want gradually to expand our contact by peaceful ways,\'\' government spokesman Shaw Yu-ming recently told foreign journalists. ``We have to move in measured steps. ... It\'s not a very action-packed kind of approach.\'\' Lee also said he wanted to quickly scrap the 1947 ``Mobilization for the Supression of the Communist Rebellion.\'\' Not only would this mean Taiwan would no longer view the Beijing government as a rebel group, but it would also lift temporary legal provisions that have guaranteed the Nationalist Party a lock on power. Under the provisions, the Legislature and electoral college are dominated by Nationalists, elected on mainland China before the civil war defeat. The theory is they cannot be replaced until their constituencies are recaptured and new elections held. But the mainland-elected parliamentarians are dying fast and the island\'s 20 million people, 85 percent of whom are native Taiwanese, want a greater say in government. Lee on Sunday gave a two-year timetable for replacing the provisions with constitutional amendments that would establish ``a great model of political democracy for all times.\'\' He also stressed the importance of securing fair competition among political parties, indicating an understanding that future legitimacy must come from the people. Still, the promise of greater democracy is viewed skeptically by many students and opposition party members. They view Lee\'s decision to nominate the country\'s only four-star general as premier a step back toward the Nationalists\' authoritarian past. But the nomination of Defense Minister Hau Pei-tsun also is viewed less sinisterly as an attempt by Lee to shore up his support among party elders and to crack down on rampant corruption and crime. Government spokesman Shaw said military rule or a return to authoritanism would be impossible. ``Nobody in this land, no party, no group ... no individuals, can turn the clock back,\'\' he said. ``Military rule, military dictatorship or even authoritarian-type of politics cannot ... be accepted by our people.\'\'\r\n'),(1431,2,'A four-member family earning $31,000 a year pays three times as much of its income in state sales and excise taxes as does one making over $612,000, a private study reported today. The share of earnings soaked up by those taxes is almost five times as large for the poorest families _ those making less than $8,600 _ as it is for the richest, according to a report by Citizens for Tax Justice. This happens because the taxes are applied at a flat rate regardless of income. In 23 states, the disparity is even worse than the national average. The poor in South Dakota and Mississippi pay about seven times as much of their earnings in sales and excise taxes as do the rich; in Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana, almost six times as much. The study focused on general sales taxes and on excise taxes, chiefly those on gasoline and tobacco. It concluded that: _The poorest 20 percent of four-member families, averaging income of $8,581, paid 5.4 percent of their earnings in sales and excise taxes last year. _The second one-fifth, averaging $20,535, paid 3.9 percent. _The third, averaging $31,497, paid 3.3 percent. _The fourth, averaging $44,910, paid 2.9 percent. _The highest-earning one-fifth, averaging $66,912, paid 2.5 percent. _The top-earning 5 percent, averaging $187,316, paid 1.6 percent. _Four-member families averaging $612,122 a year _ the richest 0.7 percent of Americans _ paid 1.1 percent of their incomes for sales and excise taxes. Citizens for Tax Justice is a Washington-based research organization that is financed by organized labor and several liberal social groups. The organization considers income taxes more equitable than consumption taxes, including excise and sales taxes. Income taxes generally take a bigger bite of each dollar as income rises and, thus, fall more heavily on upper-income Americans. ``By relying on nickel-and-dime sales taxes, state governments across the country have quietly heaped an onerous burden on their poorest citizens,\'\' Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, said in releasing the study. ``The less you make, the worse you do _ especially in states with heavy taxes on food, utilities, tobacco and fuels.\'\' The ultimate solution, he said, is for states to rely less on sales taxes and more on income taxes. In the meantime, McIntyre added, sales taxes can be made less onerous by extending rebates to the poor and applying the levies disproportionately to services that are generally used by the well-to-do, such as club memberships and home-improvement services. The study concluded that the 10 states with relatively low tax burdens on the poor have considerably more money available for public services than do the 10 whose sales taxes on the poor are highest. ``Taxing the poor heavily is both cruel and inefficient,\'\' said McIntyre. ``It doesn\'t produce much in the way of revenues because the poor don\'t make very much money.\'\' Sixteen states still fully tax food; over 22 percent of all food purchases in the United States are taxed. In fact, the study found, the 10 states with the most onerous sales taxes on the poor all tax food. They are: Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, South Dakota, Virginia and Hawaii. The poor spend 6.2 percent of income on electrical bills, more than double the rate of the middle-income family. But that middle-income family pays three times as big a share for electricity as do the rich, the study found. The portion of the $600,000-a-year family\'s income spent for tax on take-home beer is only 15 percent of the $8,600 family\'s share. On cigarettes, the upper-income family\'s share is 1 percent of the low-income family\'s; on gasoline, 4 percent; on fresh flowers, 98 percent; on legal fees, 100 percent; jewelry, 259 percent; wine for home consumption, 324 percent, and out-of-town lodging, 613 percent. The study found that only six states have set up a system of tax credits to reduce the sales-tax burden on the poor. In only one state, New Mexico, would the credit offset as much as half the burden. The six states and the theoretical reduction for the poor, if all the poor applied for the credit: New Mexico, 64 percent; Kansas, 35 percent; Vermont, 26 percent; Idaho, 22 percent; Hawaii, 17 percent, and North Carolina, 7 percent.\r\n'),(1432,2,'An anti-smoking measure in a rural town lost its place in Colorado history when city officials discovered it hadn\'t passed after all. ``The election judges read the results backwards,\'\' City Administrator Roy Lauricello said Monday. About 17 percent of the estimated 4,600 registered voters in this conservative eastern Colorado town voted June 5 on the proposal to limit smoking in public. Afterward, the city said the ordinance passed 431-355, giving the City Council 60 days to decide how strict to make the regulations. But a recount Monday revealed the measure actually failed by 11 votes, Lauricello said. ``I\'m in a state of disbelief that an error of this size could have been made,\'\' said Mark Simmerman, a public health nurse who campaigned for the measure. Thirty-four Colorado cities and counties have enacted smoking restrictions, but this would have been the first passed in a rural town, according to the Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution.\r\n'),(1433,2,'Riot police armed with rifles arrested at least 150 people Sunday to prevent marches by pro-democracy demonstrators demanding the government lift its 29-year-old ban on political parties. The protesters, shouting ``Long live the revolution!\'\' were taken into custody as they entered Katmandu\'s main shopping district of New Road to begin marching, said witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity. The planned march was one of several scheduled around Nepal by two banned political groups, the Nepali Congress Party and a left-wing coalition, who are leading a movement for more political freedom. Political demonstrations are not allowed in Nepal. According to the government, at least 12 people have been killed since Feb. 18 when the movement was launched to demand restoration of a multiparty democracy. Activists say the death toll is nearly double the government figure. Activists said at least 1,000 people were taken into custody Sunday, mostly in the capital, but the witnesses, who have proved reliable in the past, said they only saw about 150 people being herded into a police station. The police refused to give any figures. Residents contacted by telephone said police also arrested demonstrators in the southeastern town of Dharan on Sunday, but they had no details. The outcome of the other planned marches was not immediately known. The state-run news agency said without elaborating that ``some persons who tried to raise undesirable slogans\'\' were arrested in the southern town of Nepalganj. The report was the only reference by the government to any demonstration in the Himalayan kingdom, one of the world\'s oldest monarchies. Witnesses said those arrested in Katmandu included Hari Bol Bhattarai, former mayor of the city and a senior member of the Nepali Congress, and Padma Ratna Tuladhar, a left-wing member of the National Assembly. Both were waving the black flags adopted by the new pro-democracy movement and were shouting anti-government slogans when policemen tore the flags from their hands and took them away, said witnesses. Earlier Sunday, more than 100 doctors and nurses in the country\'s largest hospital walked off their jobs for more than one hour in support of the pro-democracy movement. They gathered outside the 300-bed Bir Hospital in the capital, wearing black armbands over their white jackets. ``We mourn the death of our people,\'\' said one doctor, who refused to give his name for fear of reprisals. ``This is a protest against the government\'s violation of human rights.\'\' Medical students said in a statement they supported the movement. In Katmandu, hundreds of steel-helmeted policemen, wearing chest pads and carrying rifles, batons, bamboo shields and tear-gas canisters, patrolled the 2-square-mile New Road area, watched by reporters and throngs of tourists. Shops were closed, and only police vans and a few private vehicles were allowed in the usually bustling area. The government has accused the demonstrators of trying to impose their brand of democracy on a country which it says already has a working democracy. Power in Nepal is shared between the king and the National Assembly. One-fifth of the assembly\'s 140 members are nominated by the king. The rest are elected on a non-party basis. Advocates of multiparty democracy say the elections are a farce and that the only candidates allowed are those approved by King Birendra or his associates. Nepal\'s two-year experiment with Western-style democracy ended in 1961 when then-King Mahendra, the present monarch\'s father, dissolved the government of the Nepali Congress Party, accusing it of corruption and poor administration.\r\n'),(1434,2,'A ship that has been unable to unload its 10,000 tons of ash for 20 months is headed for West Africa, where public anger is rising at industrial nations trying to dump wastes. The Khian Sea is en route to the Cape Verde Islands, and from there it will go to an undisclosed destination in West Africa, said its operator, the Amalgamated Shipping Co. of Freeport, the Bahamas. In a June 3 letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, Amalgamated Shipping said the Khian Sea was proceeding ``under reduced speed\'\' to the islands west of Senegal to await further orders. The company said it had a representative in West Africa negotiating for the discharge of the ash, which came from city incinerators. The Organization of African Unity has called plans by developed countries to dump their wastes ``a crime against Africa and Africans,\'\' and the Greenpeace environmental group said in a report last week that shipping waste to Africa was a growing trend. ``In particular, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America have become the preferred dumping grounds of waste peddlers from industrialized countries,\'\' Greenpeace said. On Thursday, Guinean officials announced that they had jailed a Norwegian official and several Guinean employees of the Ministry of Commerce for bringing 15,000 tons of Philadelphia ash into the country. ``If the Khian Sea is planning to go to West Africa, if these guys are thinking of marketing their material there, their timing is way off,\'\' said Peter Christich, an official in the EPA\'s international affairs office. The Khian Sea left Philadelphia in October 1986 loaded with about 15,000 tons of incinerator ash. It has been rejected by the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Haiti and Guinea-Bissau. It unloaded about 4,000 tons of ash in Haiti before being ordered out of the country. It returned to the Delaware Bay on March 1 with the intention of taking the ash back to Philadelphia. But negotiations broke down with the contractor who was to dispose of the ash, Joseph Paolino & Sons, and the ship left May 22. In March, A.S. Bulkhandling, Inc., a Norwegian shipping company, said it had taken 15,000 tons of Philadelphia incinerator ash to Guinea to be used in making construction material. The ash was dumped on the island of Kassa, off the Guinean coast. By May, the Guinean government formally requested that the ash be removed. Bulkhandling officials tried to convince the government that the ash was not harmful, but it was not convinced and set a May 20 deadline to remove the ash. The ash was not taken away, and on Thursday, the government announced that Norway\'s consul general had been arrested for complicity in the secret dumping of what it called 15,000 tons of toxic waste from the United States. Ibrahima Sory Diaby, Guinean secretary of state for security, said the waste was shipped from Philadelphia. City officials have said that the ash is not harmful.\r\n'),(1435,2,'Alarmed by the fast spread of AIDS in the country, Mexican authorities have begun a campaign called Cascade Education, a novel approach that enlists those most likely to be afflicted to spread the word. The campaign is aimed directly at male and female prostitutes, the homosexual community, street gangs and the poor in the hope that what they learn about AIDS prevention will ``cascade\'\' down to others in their own vernacular. Most of the effort is concentrated in Mexico City, a metropolis of 18 million people, where high-risk people are hard to reach through newspapers and other standard means. ``We are teaching them to become health care promoters and sending them into their communities,\'\' said Dr. Glorias Ornellas Hall, director of the National Center for AIDS Information, an arm of the federal Public Health Department. ``We believe that using the media to give information is not enough to change behavior patterns. Only face-to-face contact can do that,\'\' she said. ``The best way is for them to reach their own communities in their own language. That includes prostitutes reaching out to prostitutes, homosexuals to homosexuals, even deaf-mutes to deaf-mutes.\'\' According to the center, Mexico had 1,126 confirmed AIDS cases as of Feb. 1, and the number is doubling every seven months. For every confirmed case, an additional 50 to 100 people are becoming exposed to the virus, said Dr. Jaime Sepulveda Amor, the department\'s director of epidemiology. Sepulveda, who is also president of the government\'s National Commission on AIDS Prevention, estimated during a recent interview the number of people confirmed to have AIDS will reach over 25,000 by 1991, making it the second or third leading cause of death for people in the 25 to 44 age group in Mexico, which has a population estimated at 81.7 million. In the United States the number of AIDs cases reported since June, 1981, has reached 57,024. Since it was founded last year, the information center has broadcast its services on radio and television and through bumper stickers, posters, keychains and matchbooks with condoms attached. Mexico recently received a donation of 10 million condoms from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The center also has trained dozens of Mexico City residents in its Cascade Education program, offering instructional rclasses but leaving the actual teaching process to each individual. ``We give them the basics, then leave the style of presentation in their own hands,\'\' Ornellas said. The center\'s staff also trains street-gang leaders and visits jails to teach police officials and prisoners. Ornellas said many of the Cascade volunteers from the streets originally visited the center to be tested for the AIDS virus and, with counselling and support, have joined the program. She said the best of them are those who have tested positive. One male prostitute in the program, only known by his nickname of Jaimito, regularly visits Mexico City markets to sing a ``ranchero\'\' song he wrote and recorded called, ``What is AIDS?\'\' Ornellas called Jaimito ``one of our great promoters.\'\' A deaf mute who also is a male prostitute is another is Cascade promoter. ``He uncovered a whole sub-culture of deaf mutes who prostitute themselves off to make a living,\'\' Ornellas said. ``We found that many feel they have no other way to earn money.\'\' An initial Health Department survey indicated that about 30 percent of the male homosexual community in Mexico City has been exposed to the AIDS virus. Gerardo Ortega Zurita, a Cascade volunteer leader, said cultural prejudices have made it very difficult for homosexual men to seek help. ``There\'s incredible discrimination against homosexuals, who are isolated from the centers of the country,\'\' Ortega said. ``Teaching them about AIDS is difficult. They are forced to hide from the police and other government authorities.\'\' Ortega brings youths from what he calls ``controlled groups\'\' of prostitutes to the center to be examined and learn about AIDS prevention. ``But there are others we can\'t get to, who are more preoccupied with making a living than with taking care of their lives,\'\' he said. Ornellas and other health officials say the Cascade approach is essential not only in reaching previously hidden subcultures but in confronting many myths about AIDS. ``We\'ve come across many beliefs,\'\' Ornellas said. ``Some say AIDS is punishment from God, and others, that witchcraft can ward it off. In a country with cultural setbacks that include religious beliefs, ignorance and cultural taboos that do not allow the use of condoms, we found that this program has worked.\'\' Currently, Ornellas said the center is receiving 50 visits and 100 telephone queries a day from people wanting to find out about AIDS. ``It\'s new that they should come out at all,\'\' she said. ``The very lowest class is the most at risk, and the hardest to get to. There\'s a disrespect for life (among them); they don\'t care if they die.\'\' As in other countries in Latin America, the center had to overcome initial resistance from the Roman Catholic Church in distributing literature and promoting the use of condoms. Clerics are one way of reaching rural areas, Ornellas said. ``We haven\'t even started with rural people, where you have whole families living in a single room. Children learn about sex in one room. What\'s going to happen when AIDS reaches these rural areas?\'\'\r\n'),(1436,2,'Rep. Bud Shuster says it was a ``legitimate public works project\'\' that led him to the Virgin Islands last week. But congressional sources said things seemed to happen in the reverse order _ that the Pennsylvania Republican wanted to go the islands, and dispatched aides to find a reason for the government to send him there. Shuster toured an airport construction project before leaving St. Thomas island on Wednesday following a four-day stay. Shuster, a member of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, had his trip to the island of St. Thomas approved ``without compunctions\'\' by Rep. Glenn Anderson, D-Calif., the panel\'s chairman, according to committee aide Paul Schlesinger. The airport tour came after Public Works staff members had looked into other projects for Shuster to inspect in the Virgin Islands, including one on St. Croix, according to congressional aides who spoke on condition of anonymity. While he was in the Virgin Islands, Shuster\'s top aides refused to disclose his whereabouts. ``We\'re going to take this back to the voters. He did nothing wrong,\'\' Shuster administrative assistant Ann Eppard said Friday. She said the congressman knew nothing about staff members shopping around for projects, and that if they did that, ``then it was not initiated by the congressman.\'\' She said Shuster was unavailable for an comment Friday. Interviewed by telephone Thursday from his rural central Pennsylvania district, Shuster denied that the committee was paying for the entire trip. He said the tour of the airport ``was an official trip, and the committee pays for my airfare back. I spent my own money staying.\'\' Shuster said the Virgin Islands trip represented ``a couple days off\'\' and that, ``It\'s none of your goddamned business what I do in my personal time.\'\' Schlesinger, the committee aide, said he was not aware that Shuster had arranged to pay part of the cost. But Eppard said Shuster got only ``a one-day per diem and a one-way (plane) ticket.\'\' Like other committees, the House panel is free to sponsor its members on fact-finding missions around the world. Shuster tacked the Virgin Islands trip onto the end of a fact-finding trip to Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras that he had taken with three other House members of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Shuster said he arrived in the Virgin Islands on Dec. 17, the day after the intelligence committee concluded its fact-finding mission. Asked why Shuster did not return home with the others, Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., said, ``He had other business to tend to.\'\' Shuster, the second-ranking Republican on the Public Works panel and a member of the subcommittee on aviation, inspected the Cyril E. King Airport in St. Thomas on the same day as his trip home, according to officials of the Virgin Islands Port Authority. ``This is construction of a completely new airport on an existing airport. A lot of money has been appropriated for this project and he wanted to understand what was being done and how far it had progressed,\'\' said John Harding, executive director of the port authority. Shuster termed it ``a legitimate public works inspection.\'\' He said there has been a major cost overrun, and the Federal Aviation Administration had cited the airport ``as being among the most dangerous.\'\' FAA spokeswoman Joann Sloane said in an interview Friday, ``From what I can find out, it\'s not dangerous but they have a short runway. There\'s a mountain on one side and water and other, and they\'re building the new runway out into where the water is.\'\' Shuster said aides did not disclose his trip because there was a rule in his office not to reveal his itinerary for security reasons. Asked about Shuster\'s whereabouts earlier this week while he was in the Virgin Islands, aide Karen Schecter had pointed to a wire service photograph appearing in a Pennsylvania newspaper on Dec. 15 _ six days earlier _ showing the congressman in Managua, Nicaragua. The conservative Shuster, 56, was just elected to his ninth term. In September, he was presented with his tenth Golden Bulldog Award by a private, non-partisan group which presents awards for fiscal integrity.\r\n'),(1437,2,'At least 12 Mariel prisoners have apparently exhausted their administrative appeals and could be deported within days, but plans are in the works by prisoner advocates to block any deportations, a newspaper reported Thursday. Gary Leshaw, director of the non-profit Atlanta legal aid organization representing Mariel detainees, said he was informed by the Justice Department that there would be an announcement Thursday on the prisoners. Meanwhile, prisoner advocate groups in Miami and Atlanta plan to ask federal judges to stop the deportations, which if carried out would mark the first time Cubans have been deported to their communist homeland since May 1985, The Miami Herald reported. ``There is a chance if we all speak with one united voice here and explain the merits of our case,\'\' said Rafael Penalver, chairman of the Task Force of Cuban American Citizen Organizations. Penalver is a lawyer who helped negotiate the settlement to end riots by 3,800 Mariel detainees in Oakdale, La., and at an Atlanta prison last November. ``We will appeal to President Reagan. He can block the deportations, even if the people are sitting in an airplane at the airport.\'\' A special three-member Justice Department panel was created in the aftermath of the riots to review the cases of 113 Mariel detainees in federal prison in Talladega, Ala. In the past two months, the panel has looked at prison records, immigration history, written statements from the prisoners and other materials, but there have been no personal appearances by the prisoners or their lawyers. Deportations to Cuba were reinstated as part of a renewed immigration pact between the United States and Cuba that allows up to 20,000 Cubans and 3,000 political prisoners and their families to emigrate and, in return, the Cuban government will take back 2,500 prisoners. The Justice Department contends that these prisoners are criminals the Cuban regime injected into a boatlift of refugees from the port of Mariel. Prisoners selected for deportation are being taken from a list of Mariel inmates who were imprisoned at the time of the 1984 immigration pact. Jorge Mas Canosa, chairman of the Cuban-American National Foundation, acknowledges there is much division over the deporations, even in Dade County\'s Cuban exile community. He said the foundation favors letting Cubans apply for visas to immigrate to the United States but opposes the deportations to Cuba. ``I cannot in one hand denounce the human rights situation in Cuba and then support sending them back,\'\' Mas said.\r\n'),(1438,2,'Here are some quotes from the Soviet Communist Party Congress held Tuesday in Moscow. ``I maintain only one thing: The policy that I have chosen I will pursue, and for me the biggest prize is that my homeland will live.\'\' _ Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. ``It is an illusion to think that after all dissenters, all who do not wish to be drive belts and cogs of the apparatus, quit the party, it will retain all the property of the Soviet Communist Party and the associated authority. It will not be so. ... The party will be bankrupt, obliged to repay its debts to the people, if only with its property.\'\' _ Boris N. Yeltsin, president of the Russian Federation. ``I don\'t see another force other than the party which could bring progress to our country.\'\' _ hard-liner Yegor K. Ligachev ``Our Russian thirst for blood is showing. It\'s stupid and ugly and inhuman.\'\' - Inna Dementyeva, a Moscow delegate. ``You can never go back to yesterday by any path, and no dictatorship ... solves anything. If any of the delegates came to the congress with the hope of returning the party to old conditions, comfortable or uncomfortable, this is not a question, they were seriously mistaken.\'\' _ Gorbachev.\r\n'),(1439,2,'A federal judge today ruled unconstitutional the school dance ban that has been in effect in tiny Prudy for at least a century. U.S. District Judge Russell Clark stopped short, however, of ordering the school board to hold dances for students. ``It would be inappropriate for this court to order the district to sponsor school dances. However, a district rule prohibiting students from holding dances on school property infringes on the First Amendment rights of the students and must be invalidated,\'\' Clark said in the decision that followed four days of testimony in June. He awarded the plaintiffs _ 21 students and their parents _ $1 in nominal damages and attorney fees and ordered the school board not to enforce its ban on dancing. William Fleischaker, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer from Joplin, who represented those who favored dances, said the school board could still ban dancing if it could present reasons other than the written rule and religious reasons. But he said he felt it would be ``foolish\'\' of the school board to try to stop dances on school property. Nancy Fox, 16, student body president for the upcoming school year, said she would try to organize a dance for the start of the school term next month. ``I think the only change will be we\'ll have some dances and we\'ll have some fun. I hope there won\'t be any bad attitudes,\'\' she said after Clark\'s ruling. School officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The school board lawyer was with a client, and members of the school board did not answer their telephones. Clark said he found the testimony of school board members ``incredible.\'\' ``The entire board candidly admits that they followed the will of the majority, but they were not candid in their opinions of the religious reasoning of the majority,\'\' Clark wrote. ``This court is skeptical that it heard the complete story concerning the board members\' deliberations of the rule and the religious significance of the opposition to dancing in Purdy,\'\' his order said. The pro-dancers sued the school board in 1986, maintaining the dance ban was inspired by a religious bias against dancing. But school board members testified that the community of 900 people southwest of Springfield opposed dancing for a number of reasons that had little to do with religion, including the belief that dancing leads to drinking and other discipline problems. The school board handbook states simply: ``School dances are not authorized and school premises shall not be used for purposes of conducting a dance.\'\' Purdy High School proms have been held in neighboring communities, prompting some parents to complain that their children were put into danger by being forced to drive 30 miles or more to dance. In recent decades, senior classes have made a ritual of asking the school to allow a dance and being refused. But the class of 1986 proved more persistent. Students that year signed a petition in support of a school dance to publicize a local chapter of Students Against Drunk Driving. They asked their parents\' help and sought media attention when they took the request before the school board. They were met with resistance organized in local churches _ so many people were drawn to the meeting at which the ban was challenged that it had to be moved to the high school gymnasium. The school board, lobbied by anti-dancing ministers, voted unanimously to uphold the ban. Dance supporters followed with a rally to which they invited stars of the movie ``Footloose,\'\' a movie about a fictional Texas town where dancing was banned. Actors Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer were unable to attend.\r\n'),(1440,2,'A delegation of Israeli left-wingers and moderates challenged a 2-year-old law by attending a conference along with Palestine Liberation Organization observers, a participant said Wednesday. The delegates could face three years in jail if they are found to have violated a law passed in August 1986 which bars Israelis from meeting with members of the PLO, viewed by Israel as a terrorist group. In the first test case last month, a court convicted four Israelis for meeting with PLO officials in Costinesti, Romania in November 1986. The four have not yet been sentenced. Moshe Amirav, an Israeli delegate, told The Associated Press the Israeli group attended a three-day symposium last week along with Palestinian academics at the invitation of the Free University in Amsterdam. Two PLO officials, Afif Safieh and Ilan Halevy, attended the conference as observers but did not take part in its proceedings, he said. ``The law is stupid. But we will continue meeting in such a way that we won\'t be able to be accused of anything,\'\' Amirav said, adding that none of the delegates had been summoned for police questioning. The daily Hadashot reported Amirav actually met with the PLO officials, but Amirav denied the report. Other sources who attended the conference and refused to be identified said some members of the Israeli delegation did meet with the PLO officials. Amirav said other Israeli delegates included Nitza Shapira-Libai of the left-leaning Labor Party, a former adviser to then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres on women\'s affairs; former left-wing legislator Meir Pail, and human rights lawyers Naomi Chazan and David Kretzmer. Amirav is a former activist in the right-wing Likud Bloc who was expelled from his party for advocating direct talks with the PLO and far-reaching self-rule for Palestinians in the occupied territories. He enraged party leaders last year by meeting with Faisel Husseini, a resident of Arab east Jerusalem billed by Israeli authorities as the PLO\'s representative in the occupied West Bank. Amirav, now a member of the liberal Center Party, said the Israelis found the Palestinian academics surprisingly moderate. He said the academics told him the PLO was ready to recognize Israel and end the Middle East conflict in return for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. ``We were stunned by their attitude,\'\' he said. ``They said they recognized Israel and believed there should be two independent states.\'\' The delegation was the third known group of Israelis to attend a forum with PLO officials and the first to include moderate participants more representative of the Israeli consensus. The other groups openly defied the law and met directly with PLO officials, arguing the group was not terrorist.\r\n'),(1441,2,'Israel on Saturday ordered four Palestinian activists deported. It made the announcement a day after Moslem fundamentalists stabbed three Jews to death. The four will be allowed to appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court, the army said. If upheld, the expulsions would be the first since August 1989, when five Palestinians were expelled for their roles in the uprising against Israeli rule. Sixty Arabs have been expelled since the uprising began in December 1987. In Washington, the State Department denounced Saturday\'s deportation orders. ``The United States deplores this decision by the government of Israel,\'\' State Department spokesman Alan Shub said. ``We\'ve consistently ... held that such deportations are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention as it pertains to the treatment of inhabitants of occupied territories.\'\' Other nations in the past have also condemned deportations as a violation of human rights. In the recent outbreak of anti-Israeli violence that followed the Oct. 8 Temple Mount riot, in which 17 Palestinians were killed, some Israeli politicians have called for reinstating deportations. Israel radio said the four ordered expelled were residents of the occupied Gaza Strip and were members of the Moslem fundamentalist movement Hamas, or Zeal. The radio said the activists were arrested along with hundreds of other Hamas members after Moslem fundamentalists stabbed three Jews to death Friday in the Arab-Jewish town of Jaffa, adjacent to Tel Aviv. The army would not say how many Arabs were arrested; Arab reports said it was nearly 500. The army said the four all took part in violent activities. But it was not clear if they were suspected of involvement in the killings. Earlier, police said two Palestinians were wanted in Friday\'s killings of the Jews, and they were believed to be hiding in Gaza. Also Saturday, Israel restricted the number of Palestinians allowed to leave the Gaza Strip as part of its search for the assailants. The army command initially sealed off Gaza, confining its 750,000 Arab residents to the area and barring journalists from entering. But it later lifted the closure, allowing Palestinians who met strict security criteria to enter Israel. Arab reporters said Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantizi, a founder of Hamas, was one of the arrested. Two men who preach at the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount also were detained, Arab reports said. Hamas marked the third anniversary of its founding Friday and had called on Palestinians to honor the date by escalating their uprising against Israel. The Arabs who killed the Jews sprayed Moslem fundamentalist slogans on the walls before fleeing, police said. Radio reports said the government would discuss Friday\'s attack at its weekly meeting Sunday. Curfews were in place Saturday in parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank to prevent violence on the Hamas anniversary. The curfews meant that about 250,000 Arabs were confined to their homes. In other incidents, paramilitary border police clashed with masked youths in east Jerusalem in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Jerusalem police spokesman Aharon Elhayani said one youth was injured slightly by a rubber bullet. In the Gaza town of Rafah, masked men fatally shot Akram Hosli Aram, 18, in the head. An activist group said Aram, who worked as a laborer in Israel, was killed for collaborating with Israeli authorities. Aram\'s death brought to 318 the number of Palestinians killed by fellow Arabs during the 3-year-old uprising, most on suspicion of collaborating with Israel. At least 778 Arabs have been killed by Israeli civilians or soldiers during the revolt. Friday\'s deaths raised to 57 the number of Israelis who have died in the violence.\r\n'),(1442,2,'A federal appeals court on Friday upheld Eastern Airlines\' layoff of more than 3,000 employees when the financially troubled carrier eliminated service to 14 cities to stem continuing losses. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said there was insufficient evidence to support contentions of three unions that the layoffs were part of an illegal campaign to weaken the power of organized labor at Eastern. The unions ``have directed our attention to nothing that would undermine Eastern\'s claim that legitimate business concerns provide an ample reason for these reductions,\'\' the court said in an opinion by Judge Stephen Williams. The panel noted that ``there is no claim that Eastern has tailored its reductions so as to impose a differential impact on union members. Indeed, it appears that the furloughs affect union members and non-members in roughly their proportions of Eastern\'s workforce.\'\' The court also ruled that the layoffs of baggage handlers and flight attendands were not an illegal change in working conditions under the Railway Labor Act, which governs labor negotiations in the airline and railroad industries. The court found that U.S. District Judge Barrington D. Parker had ``erred in granting the injunction as the furlough was not an unlawful change in the status quo.\'\' Last month, Parker had enjoined the layoffs. But the appeals court had quickly dissolved the preliminary injunction, saying Eastern could proceed to lay off affected employees if it posted a $4.7 million bond while the case was appealed. In a statement from its Miami headquarters, the airline hailed the decision as ``a very significant, positive development for Eastern Airlines,\'\' ``Eastern believes the decision is extremely important because the court has reaffirmed management\'s right to operate its business in the best interests of the company, its employees, shareholders and the public,\'\' the company said. Union spokesmen expressed disappointment with the verdict and said no decision had been made on how to proceed. Eastern, which has lost $1 billion since 1980, announced the layoffs in July as part of a plan to eliminate unprofitable routes to 14 cities and close its Kansas City hub. Citing losses of $120 million in the first six months of this year, the company said it was restructuring its operation to concentrate service along more profitable East Coast routes. Profitable service to Latin American points would also be maintained. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the Transport Workers Union of America and the Air Line Pilots Association, contended that the furloughs were merely part of an anti-union campaign being waged by Eastern\'s parent, Texas Air Corp. The pilots union joined the legal challenge even though pilots were not being laid off as a result of the schedule changes. The airline said attrition would account for a reduction in pilot jobs. The unions argued that the layoffs were part of a plan by Texas Air, which acquired the carrier in 1986, to transfer work to its non-union subsidiary, Continental Airlines, and sell off profitable Eastern assets. Judge Stephen Williams, in the opinion joined by Judges David Sentelle and James L. Buckley, found that ``Eastern and Texas Air officials have certainly expressed at least exasperation with Eastern\'s unions.\'\' But the panel said ``the present record provides little support for any possible finding that forbidden purposes drove Eastern\'s decisionmaking.\'\' Eastern said it will save between $99 million and $199 million in annual operating losses if it cut the unprofitable service plus daily payroll savings of $160,000 from the layoffs. During the second quarter of this year, Eastern said it was losing $1 million a day. Under schedule changes implemented Aug. 31, Eastern eliminated 140 of its 1,225 daily flights and will sell between 33 and 41 airplanes. Service was eliminated to Albuquerque, N.M.,; Reno and Las Vegas, Nev.; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla.; Omaha, Neb.; Dallas and San Antonio, Texas; San Diego; Tucson, Ariz.; Fort de France, Martinique; Point-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe; and St. Lucia, West Indies. Because Parker did not have enough time to fully explore the claims of anti-labor bias, the panel said the union should be given another opportunity to document their allegations in the lower court. ``We do not view this decision as the end of the story,\'\' said Joseph Guerrieri, a lawyer representing the IAM. He said the union was studying whether to take the case back to Parker or seek a rehearing by the full 11-member appeals court. ``We\'re very disappointed in the decision,\'\' said Nancy Currier, vice president of the Transport Workers Local 553 in Miami, which represents about 6,700 Eastern flight attendants. ``... Our legal counsel is studying it and will advise us where we can go from here.\'\' ``We are committed to continuing to do whatever we can to stop the furlough and bring our people back to work. If we can\'t do it through the courts, we\'ll have to try to restore collective bargaining,\'\' she said. She said union leaders are preparing to begin contract talks with Eastern. Their contract becomes amendable Dec. 31.\r\n'),(1443,2,'Since the prison disturbances by Mariel Cuban detainees last fall, the government has released more than 1,000 of the detainees into halfway houses or with family sponsors in communities, the Justice Department announced Friday. One of the triggers to last year\'s uprisings at federal prisons in Atlanta and Oakdale, La., was the fact that the government was taking so long to place them in halfway houses once they were deemed eligible for release, according to legal advocates for the detainees. Federal officials said they were having trouble finding halfway house space for the detainees. From last June until the time the prison riots erupted in November, the Immigration and Naturalization Service had released 106 Cuban inmates to halfway houses or to family sponsors. A total of 1,047 have been placed since the disturbances. INS has approved 2,224 Cuban detainees for release since last June, of whom 1,337 have been approved since the riots. Parole has been denied to 1,193 Mariel Cubans and 845 of the denials have been decided since the uprisings. When the riots broke out, there were about 7,600 Cuban detainees in various facilities. The Justice Department also announced it plans to repatriate 14 Mariel Cubans, the first group of detainees designated for return to Cuba since the prison disturbances. The 14, in federal custody since completing prison sentences for crimes committed in the United States, have been notified that the INS intends to send them back, the Justice Department said. Those in the group to be repatriated have been convicted of crimes including voluntary manslaughter, armed robbery, attempted first-degree murder, kidnapping and attempted rape. The repatriation process will include a review of their cases by a Justice Department review panel under an agreement which ended the rioting at Atlanta and Oakdale. Those facing repatriation will be given the opportunity to submit additional information on their behalf to the Justice Department review panels, which specifically exclude immigration officers.\r\n'),(1444,2,'Serbia and Montenegro, the last Communist-ruled Yugoslav republics, on Sunday hold multiparty elections that could decide whether the country stays together or disintegrates. In the country\'s largest republic, Serbia, the first free vote in more than 50 years pits the Socialists, formerly the Communists, against a host of center-right nationalist parties. In traditionally pro-Communist Montenegro, the country\'s smallest republic, the vote is being contested by the ruling Communists and 10 other parties, including some who seek union with neighboring Serbia. In the struggle to shape the country\'s future, the western republics of Croatia and Slovenia, where center-right parties ousted Communists in spring elections, want more independence from the federation and have threatened to secede. They are pitted against Serbia and Montenegro, whose politicians generally favor a strong central government, although some have accepted the possibility that the country could break up. The race between Socialist leader Slobodan Milosevic and his bitter rival, Vuk Draskovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement, for Serbia\'s powerful presidency is the most important in Sunday\'s elections. Milosevic has so far refused to negotiate with rival Croatia and Slovenia on the country\'s future. But Draskovic has suggested there might be no stopping the country\'s breakup. ``If I become president, I would immediately negotiate with Croatia and Slovenia in order to deflate this horrible balloon of hatred in Yugoslavia,\'\' Draskovic said in a recent interview. ``If we fail to reach an agreement about living together, we will set up separate states.\'\' The Serbian Reneval Movement poses the biggest challenge to the Socialists. It demands the restoration of capitalism and the return of Serbia\'s glory as a dominant Balkan state. The outcome of the vote in Serbia could decide a decade-long struggle for power in Yugoslavia, which is being wracked by ethnic and political tensions between its six constituent republics and two provinces. With tensions in Yugoslavia running high, U.S. intelligence has predicted the country could split in 18 months and civil war could break out. Milosevic and Draskovic face 30 lesser rivals running for Serbia\'s presidency. Also at stake are 250 seats in the republic\'s Parliament which are contested by 44 parties. Pre-election polls indicated the Socialists were slightly ahead of Draskovic\'s party. But they also indicated nearly 40 percent of the republic\'s 6,865,445 eligible voters were still undecided. Serbia\'s opposition claims that the republic\'s acrimonious election campaign has claimed five lives. The Socialists say those were not politically motivated deaths. Opposition leaders repeatedly have alleged that the Socialists were preparing to rig the elections to stay in power. They say that since April the Communist authorities have stopped registering deaths in Serbia to enter the non-existing votes in the coming elections. The Socialists deny any wrongdoing. In last year\'s single-party Serbian elections, unregistered voters, who in some cases were under age, were allowed to cast ballots. As a result, Milosevic won with 104 percent of the votes in some areas. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close 12 hours later. First official results of the elections in the two republics are expected early this week. Runoff elections in all districts where one candidate did not get at least 50 percent of the votes are scheduled for Dec. 23.\r\n'),(1445,2,'Here\'s a sampling of what newspapers abroad are saying about the Democratic National Convention:\r\n'),(1446,2,'Some 33,000 pounds of refuse was carted away from a house after it was declared unfit for human habitation, the city\'s environmental health director said. That was 9,000 pounds more garbage than was generated in the entire city after last October\'s World Series celebration, said the director, Frank Staffenson. It took seven truckloads to remove the refuse. Cleanup was completed Wednesday when the last of the garbage was removed, rodent traps were placed inside, and the house was boarded up. ``As it stands now the house is condemned as unfit for human habitation and will remain so until the repairs are made and the utilities turned back on,\'\' said Staffenson. The house\'s owners, Michael and Deborah Eggert, have not been available for comment. The couple\'s four children, who lived in the house, have been placed in foster care.\r\n'),(1447,2,'The Federal Communications Commission has decided to relax its rule on ownership of more than one radio station. The new rule would allow commonly owned stations to be as close as 25 miles apart, as long as they are in different markets. The rule would reduce by about half the distance required between two stations owned by the same person or company, and it would allow common ownership of stations in adjacent markets. The FCC said the new rule will enable more station owners to take greater advantage of the economies of scale and cost savings that result from common ownership of stations. The FCC also agreed to recommend that Congress require cable companies to negotiate with out-of-town TV stations for the rights to carry their signals. The commission is expected to extend that recommendation to cover local TV signals before it issues a final order in the matter.\r\n'),(1448,2,'An Irish customs officer was charged Sunday with belonging to the Irish Republican Army after police seized electronic equipment they said could be used to elude British anti-terrorist scanning devices. The charge came after the IRA claimed responsibility for killing six people and injuring 37 last week in a series of bombings and shootings in Britain, West Germany and Northern Ireland. Police sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Frank Sutcliffe was arrested Friday after three weeks of surveillance. In that operation, authorities said they seized walkie-talkie radio sets and a sniper rifle. The walkie-talkies carried devices which the police sources said could block efforts to locate radio-controlled bombs planted by the IRA. The IRA is waging a guerrilla war to unite the Protestant-dominated British province of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, where Roman Catholic are in the majority. Sutcliffe, 30, of Dublin, appeared Sunday at a special sitting of Dublin\'s anti-terrorist Special Criminal Court. He was charged with membership in the IRA, which is outlawed both in the Irish Republic and in Northern Ireland. The court was told Sutcliffe, who was released on $7,040 bail, would also face additional charges.\r\n'),(1449,2,'Rival Christian forces today used a cease-fire to stockpile weapons and redeploy troops for their next battle, while civilians fled their ruined neighborhoods for refuge in safer Moslem areas. Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces militia, refused to give any concessions to Gen. Michel Aoun and said his fighters were ready for war. A source close to Geagea\'s command said his militia had adopted a new military plan to block any attempt by Aoun to storm its strongholds if the current cease-fire collapses. ``If clashes break out anew, it will be a tough, crushing battle throughout the Christian enclave,\'\' the source said. Snipers killed one person and wounded five in various parts of the Christian enclave today, police said. By police count, the fight for the 310-square-mile enclave has killed at least 673 people and wounded 1,877, in addition to inflicting more than $750 million in damage. The dead include 97 soldiers killed since the confrontation broke out Jan. 30. The fighting began when Geagea refused Aoun\'s demand that he disband the Lebanese Forces, the largest Christian militia in Lebanon. Geagea\'s 6,000-strong militia has deployed about one-third of its fighters in east Beirut, the military source said. They are to defend its urban strongholds and deny Aoun access to the port through the streets of the Ashrafiyeh district. Aoun lost the port in the early days of the fighting. Military analysts believe Aoun must regain control of the port to ensure safe supply lines by sea before accepting any peace settlement. The Lebanese Forces moved new heavy fire power into place in the Kesrouan mountains to harass Aoun\'s back if he tries to move into the port area, the source said. The upgraded fire power includes about 120 truck-mounted multi-barreled rocket launchers brought out of weapons depots. The launchers, obtained from Iraq more than a year ago, can fire 40 122mm shells a minute. Geagea\'s men are outnumbered by Aoun\'s army at least 3-to-1 and hoped to counter his superiority with their upgraded weapons, the source said. Lebanese forces militiamen, with nearly 15 years\' experience in street battles, ``are waiting for Aoun\'s army in the narrow alleys of Ashrafiyeh, which has become a huge garrison,\'\' the source said. The militia force defending the port, Ashrafiyeh and the military headquarters of Karantina have been beefed up from 1,200 to 2,000 men, the source said. The surrender of Aoun\'s troops Saturday at Adma, an isolated pocket in Kesrouan, freed the militiamen for the new deployment. The source said the bulk of the militia\'s fighting force, backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers, was deployed along the southern and eastern edges of Kesrouan province, separated from Aoun\'s troops by a no-man\'s-land of just a few hundred yards. A police spokesman, who cannot be named in line with regulations, confirmed that both factions were bolstering their forces. Aoun\'s army stockpiled ammunition, especially tank cannon and howitzer rounds, in depots in the Metin mountains northeast of the capital. Meanwhile, civilians continued to desert the Christian enclave, seeking refuge in the predominately Moslem areas outside the enclave. The Christian communities, dispersed throughout Lebanon before the civil war, have gradually consolidated in the enclave since 1975.\r\n'),(1450,2,'The cost of living in Fairfield County is among the highest in the country, but the cost of dying has become pricey, too. To make matters worse, burial plots are running out. Most cemeteries, where single plots can cost $1,000 and more, are likely to be filled within 10 or 15 years, according to funeral home and cemetery managers. ``Cemeteries are going to become a thing of the past,\'\' said William E. Magner Jr., who manages Willowbrook Cemetery in Westport. Harriet Steuber, president of a group that administers Union Cemetery of Norwalk, said that once space runs out, ``I guess we\'ll all have to be cremated and dumped in the sound,\'\' referring to Long Island Sound, the stretch of ocean off the Connecticut coast. ``I don\'t like to think about it. It gives me the creeps,\'\' Steuber said. One solution may lie above ground. Mausoleums up to four stories high are becoming increasingly common in the region. Construction of one such facility by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport began this month at Darien\'s St. John\'s Cemetery. ``It\'s one of the, shall we say, contemporary modes of burial to help meet the lack of space,\'\' said Monsignor Nicholas B. Grieco. The structures are often multistory units containing hallways lined with crypts. Each floor might contain up to 100 bodies. ``Think of it as a giant bookcase with slots,\'\' Magner said. But mausoleums are not cost-savers. They are generally more expensive than below-ground burial, Grieco said. Other cemetery managers say mausoleum interment is about twice the price of traditional burial. Sometimes it\'s possible to economize. At St. John\'s Cemetery in Norwalk, a two-grave plot can be used for four individuals _ one on top of another. The practice is allowed at the discretion of the cemetery, which charges $1,050 for the double plots. But the cost of the grave site is only the start. Add to that payments to the cemetery for digging the grave and the price of a concrete vault, plus a foundation for a gravestone and it could cost as much as $2,000. Cremation, which one local funeral director said now accounts for about 30 percent of his business, can save several hundred dollars at the funeral home and there would be no cemetery costs. Basic cremation and transporation services can cost as little as $160.\r\n'),(1451,2,'The following are the most popular videocassettes as they appear in next week\'s issue of Billboard magazine. Copyright 1988, Billboard Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission.\r\n'),(1452,2,'An interstate probe of computer hacking has uncovered losses that may reach millions of dollars and could be ``just the tip of the iceberg,\'\' federal law enforcement officials said Wednedsay. No computer-crime arrests resulted, however, when 27 search warrants served in a dozen cities were served by 150 Secret Service agents and police on Tuesday, officials said. Three people _ one each in Chicago, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh _ were arrested for unrelated offenses, officials said. Secret Service officials declined to release any specifics, including the number of people targeted, saying the two-year investigation, code-named ``Operation Sun Devil,\'\' was continuing. The probe is focused on illegal entry into computer systems and unauthorized use of credit-card numbers and long-distance codes, said Garry M. Jenkins, assistant Secret Service director for investigations. ``The losses that we estimate on this may run to the millions of dollars,\'\' said U.S. Attorney for Arizona Stephen McNamee, who joined Jenkins and Arizona Attorney General Bob Corbin at a news conference. ``Most of you have been taking this as a game,\'\' Corbin told reporters. ``It is not a game. ... They\'re not all kids. They\'re adults, too.\'\' Much of the alleged loss stems from unpaid telephone and computer access charges, the officials said. They said it was possible that hackers had gotten goods or cash through use of unauthorized credit cards, but could not cite any instance of it. In addition to misuse of credit cards and phone lines, the hackers are believed to have gotten into computers that store medical and financial histories, the officials said. The case ``appears to be the largest so far\'\' in the field, said assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Holtzen. However, it ``is probably only the tip of the iceberg\'\' when it comes to computer crime, he said. Statements from the Secret Service and the Justice Department gave conflicting information on the number and locations of the cities where searches were made. In addition to searches in or near Phoenix, there were searches conducted this week in or near Chicago; Cincinnati; Detroit; Los Angeles; Miami; Newark, N.J.; New York City; Pittsburgh; Richmond, Va.; Plano, Texas, and San Diego. Also listed in some of the statements were San Jose, Calif.; Saginaw, Mich.; San Francisco and Tucson. Officials said they were unable to explain the discrepancies. Documents on the search warrants will be sealed pending further investigation, assistant Attorney General Gail Thackery said. Under new computer crime laws, the Secret Service has jurisdiction to investigate allegations of electronic fraud through the use of access devices such as credit-card numbers and codes long-distance companies issue to individual callers. Defendants convicted of unauthorized use of such ``access devices\'\' can be sentenced up to 10 years in prison if they commit fraud of more than $1,000, according to the law. A similar investigation supervised by federal prosecutors in Chicago has resulted in several indictments.\r\n'),(1453,2,'Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrives tonight for summit talks with President Bush that will focus on tough arms control and trade differences and search for common ground on the future of a unified Germany. The White House said Bush was in a mood of ``anticipation and confidence\'\' as Gorbachev wound up a brief visit to Canada and headed for his second summit with Bush and his first in Washington since he conferred with President Reagan in 1987. ``The president sees a new horizon in this meeting _ a horizon of opportunity,\'\' said presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. ``After their discussions we should have a much better view of a new day in East-West relations.\'\' The Soviet president, in terms harsher than comments made the previous day, reaffirmed his country\'s opposition to a united Germany belonging to NATO. ``I haven\'t yet heard any alternative from the West,\'\' Gorbachev said after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. ``It seems that it is just like an old record that seems to be playing the same note again and again. ... I would like us to find a new melody.\'\' Bush was spending his second consecutive day closeted with advisers over strategy for three days of summit talks starting Thursday. He also spoke by telephone this morning with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Tuesday night with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Fitzwater said in a statement that Bush brings to the summit talk ``the understandings and insights of many allied leaders,\'\' including British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Francois Mitterrand, with whom he met recently. Bush was not prepared to offer a position for future negotiations on the size of a unified German military _ a major concern of the Soviets _ Fitzwater said. The White House press secretary disputed news accounts suggesting Bush would offer assurances on limiting German forces to bolster Gorbachev\'s standing at home. On prospects for a trade agreement during the summit, Fitzwater said, ``I intentionally want to be vague.\'\' He added, ``I urge you not to rule out anything.\'\' ``This is an issue that really will depend on Gorbachev and Bush,\'\' he said. The Bush administration has held up the trade agreement to protest the Soviet Union\'s economic sanctions against Lithuania and Soviet failure to enact liberal emigration legislation. In a move to resolve disputed arms control issues, Col. Gen. Labronislav Omelichev, first deputy on the Soviet defense ministry\'s general staff, headed for Washington to enter talks on possible nuclear and conventional fores agreements for Bush and Gorbachev to announce. On the question of German troop levels, the United States still maintains such discussions should be held as part of future talks on reducing conventional forces in all of Europe, Fitzwater said. ``We are opposed to any proposal which would single out Germany for special limits,\'\' he said. However, Fitzwater said the summit would include ``discussions on the general question. We want to hear their concerns and their interests. We\'ll express our policy.\'\' ``This is not an issue which is linked in any way to German unity nor to the renunciation of four-power rights,\'\' Fitzwater said, referring to control of Germany\'s destiny by World War II victors Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union. ``President Bush will be exploring the subject with President Gorbachev from the standpoint of exploring mutually acceptable options and positions. Again, these issues are not going to be decided here,\'\' he said. However, an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Bush hopes to nudge Gorbachev into accelerating the first round of conventional arms talks under way in Vienna, Austria, so a treaty can be completed by year\'s end. Bush was described as firmly opposed to a Soviet proposal that a united Germany be excluded from NATO\'s military structure while remaining within its political framework. Gorbachev was upbeat about the German issue as he spoke to reporters Tuesday outside Mulroney\'s residence in Ottawa. Gorbachev said he was confident that he and Bush will find a way to preserve the balance of power in Europe after East and West Germany are unified. Asked if he was optimistic about agreement on Germany and its membership in NATO, the Soviet leader replied: ``I am sure of that. And tell that to the American people.\'\' U.S. officials disclosed that Gorbachev would meet with South Korean President Roh Tae-woo in San Francisco after the Washington summit ends with a Bush-Gorbachev news conference on Sunday. The Soviet leader\'s plan to meet Roh was viewed as a further warming in relations between the two countries, which recently established ``consular departments\'\' in trade offices in each other\'s capitals. Before flying to Washington, Gorbachev acknowledged the emergence of a new domestic worry _ the election of political maverick Boris N. Yeltsin as president of the Russian republic _ as a major earthquake struck Eastern Europe. Gorbachev told reporters that ``everything is OK\'\' in the Soviet Union despite the quake that struck Romania this morning, killing eight people, injuring 260 and causing widespread damage. Tremors were felt in Moscow and Leningrad and a Soviet lawmaker said initial reports from the republic of Moldavia indicated there were an unspecified number of deaths. The Soviet leader said he saw no reason to break off his trip and return home. A major earthquake in Soviet Armenia in December 1988 forced Gorbachev to cut short a visit to the United Nations in New York, where he also met with President Reagan. In advance of the Soviet leader\'s early evening arrival, it was announced that Vice President Dan Quayle will meet Gorbachev briefly on Friday at the Soviet Embassy to discuss cooperation on space exploration. Arms control negotiators for the two countries, meanwhile, wrangled for more than two hours Tuesday over U.S. and Soviet conventional forces in Europe as well as their nuclear arsenals, including bombers and submarines. Meeting in secrecy at the State Department, they made some progress toward reductions in both areas. They agreed, for example, on definitions for such conventional weapons as tanks and armored personnel carriers, which will make it easier to verify that treaty terms are carried out, an official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Although Secretary of State James A. Baker III\'s recent trip to Moscow led to agreement on sea and air-launched missiles, a handful of tough strategic weapons issues remained unsettled. Arms control issues still in dispute include whether to ban ballistic missiles with multiple warheads and the number of flight tests the Soviets could conduct of their heavy SS-18 missiles. The arsenal of such missiles is to be halved, from 308 to 154, but there is no agreement restricting improvement in the missiles that remain. Bush and Gorbachev still are expected to issue a joint declaration of progress toward a major reduction in nuclear arsenals, officials said, but they cautioned that long-range nuclear weapon issues still disputed may be excluded from that declaration. On the economic front, State Department spokeswoman Margaret D. Tutwiler said Tuesday that a new commercial air travel agreement has been initialed. Officials said it will be ready for signing at the summit.\r\n'),(1454,2,'The government is losing billions of dollars in tax revenues each year because the Internal Revenue Service does not use an enforcement program on business taxpayers that it has been using effectively on individuals, a House panel said Monday. A report from the House Government Operations subcommittee on commerce, consumer and monetary affairs estimated that between $3.2 billion and $8 billion a year in taxes on interest and dividends earned by businesses is never collected because the income is not reported to the IRS. While the revenue loss estimates ``are not statistically precise,\'\' the report said they provide ample justification for the IRS to include businesses in the document-matching program it now uses to verify interest and dividend earnings on individual tax returns. Under the existing document-matching program, the IRS compares ``information returns\'\' detailing interest and dividend payments to individuals with the individuals\' actual income tax returns. The program in fiscal 1985 produced $2.35 billion in additional tax revenue from individuals. Although banks and corporations are not required to file such information returns on income payments to corporations, the House report said the IRS received _ but never used _ 26 million such returns in 1985, showing income payments to 5 million businesses totaling $987 billion. ``By casting these information returns aside, IRS is not only missing the chance to assess many billions of dollars of unreported business tax liabilities but has created a double standard of enforcement that is more lenient by far toward businesses than individuals,\'\' said Rep. Doug Barnard, D-Ga., chairman of the subcommittee. IRS spokesman Frank Keith said Monday the agency has not seen the House report and will have no comment until agecny officials can review it. But at a hearing before Barnard\'s subcommittee last year, IRS Commissioner Lawrence B. Gibbs said the costs of implementing a document-matching program for corporations would not be justified by the additional revenue that would be generated. Gibbs said the administrative costs of a document-matching program for corporations would be much higher than for individuals because corporations use different fiscal years, varying accounting methods and different names. Although the problems cited by Gibbs all ``pertain to the way income is reported\'\' to the IRS, the House report said the IRS ``never considered the desirably of modifying the reporting requirements, nor assessed the feasibility of a partial document-matching program encompassing those corporations to which the difficulties do not pertain.\'\' Gibbs told the subcommittee last year the IRS would begin using document-matching to verify income reported on tax returns from single-owner businesses and would initiate a multi-year study to determine the extent of business underreporting of interest and dividend income. He also promised to begin a test program using information returns to detect corporations and partnerships that do not file any income tax return. The House report said the test program in one district office was so effective the IRS now has expanded it to nine more districts and could have a document-matching program ready by next spring to identify non-filers among corporations and partnerships nationwide. But despite such efforts, Barnard said the IRS ``has not been sufficiently diligent in attempting to extend its sophisticated computer matching capabilities to businesses.\'\' ``Individuals, and now sole proprietors, who know that each and every one of their returns will be scrutinized by IRS\' computers for unreported income deserve to know why corporate and partnership returns are being excused from this automatic examination process,\'\' Barnard said. The report said Congress should help the IRS set up a document-matching program for corporate returns by enacting legislation to require that businesses and financial institutions report to the IRS all dividend and interest payments to corporations. Barnard introduced such legislation earlier this year, but it was never reported out of the House Ways and Means Committee.\r\n'),(1455,2,'A Soviet official said Monday that claims against Washington for delays in erecting the Soviet Embassy exceed the $29 million America is demanding for an unfinished, allegedly bugged U.S. Embassy building in Moscow. A Swedish official said Monday that the U.S. claim will go to an arbitration board in Stockholm which has quietly dealt with East-West disputes for 20 years. President Reagan said last Thursday he was recommending tearing down the main office building of the new U.S. Embassy compound in Moscow because the building was riddled with Soviet eavesdropping devices. His administration is not permitting the Soviets to occupy their new building in Washington while the status of the U.S. building remains unsettled. Soviet officials deny the U.S. Embassy building in Moscow is bugged, and on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov told a news conference: ``We also have bills to present to the American side.\'\' Gerasimov said claims for late delivery of construction materials and equipment and for other troubles would surpass the amount sought by Washington. In Stockholm, Ulf Franke, vice chairman of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, said, ``We have been informed by the United States that they are preparing an arbitration (case) here in Stockholm. The next step is to appoint the arbitrators.\'\' ``The case is well prepared and it might start any day.\'\' His organization is the parent body of the Arbitration Institute. Franke said the U.S. government invoked a clause in the 1977 building contract for the embassy construction in Moscow, in which either side can refer a dispute to the Stockholm institute. The ruling of the panel is binding. State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley said in Washington that the U.S. claim against the Soviets is for damage and defective construction. No figure has been established for any bugging of the building. The State Department has said the building will be torn down and a new embassy will be contructed with U.S. workers and materials. Direct talks between the United States and Soviet Union have failed to settle the dispute. U.S. officials said last week they would ask outside arbiters to resolve it. Sweden\'s Arbitration Institute was founded 70 years ago and began dealing with international cases in the 1960s. Its reputation for secrecy has brought it a growing number of cases. The case will be heard by three arbitrators, one chosen by each side and a chairman picked by the board from a list of leading Swedish legal experts.\r\n'),(1456,2,'Farmers who received some government information late have been given additional time to file their 1987 federal income-tax returns. The Internal Revenue Service said Monday it was granting special relief to farmers who did not receive Agriculture Department documents by the Feb. 15 scheduled date. Those documents are Form 1099-G, which reflects certain government payments, and Form 1099-A, on which acquisitions or abandonments of secured property are reported. Farmers generally are not subject to penalties for underpayments if they file their returns by March 1. The IRS concluded that farmers who failed to receive required information from the Agriculture Department by Feb. 15 might be unable to meet the March 1 deadline. The IRS said farmers affected by the delay should attach to their tax return a Form 2210F on which they have written their name and Social Security number and, on the bottom right, the words ``farm waiver.\'\' With the extension, farmers will have to file returns and pay any tax owed by April 15, the deadline for most taxpayers.\r\n'),(1457,2,'Stocks opened mixed this morning after a strong runup the previous session that pushed the Dow Jones industrial average to its highest level since the October crash. The widely watched index of 30 industrials was off 0.71 to 2,151.49 by 10 a.m. EDT. Among broader market indicators, the New York Stock Exchange composite index of all listed issues rose 0.01 to 155.36. The American Stock Exchange market-value index fell 0.05 to 308.54. Losing issues narrowly outnumbered declines on the NYSE, with 460 down, 417 up and 547 unchanged. Volume on the Big Board totaled 24.07 million shares after the first 30 minutes. Brokers differed on their short-term outlook for stocks. Some expected prices to weaken from investors selling stocks to capture profits from the market\'s Wednesday surge. Others said the dollar\'s strength and eased pressure on interest rates would lure more people into the market and boost prices. On Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 43.03 points to 2,152.20, its highest level since the crash eight months ago. Advancing issues outnumbered declines by about an 11-to-4 ratio in nationwide trading of NYSE-listed stocks, with 1,144 up, 413 down and 420 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 217.51 million shares, up from 155.06 million previously.\r\n'),(1458,2,'A weather satellite that will help the military plan air, sea and ground operatios was launched Saturday into a near-polar orbit, the Air Force said. An Atlas E booster blasted off with a payload for the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. The satellite went into orbit about five minutes later about 500 hundred miles above Earth. ``It\'s going to take 20 days or so to fully check out the satellite and make sure it\'s working properly,\'\' said Staff Sgt. Tom Clements. ``From what we can see, everything looks picture perfect.\'\' Meteorology information gathered by optical scanners on the satellite will be used by all branches of the military to aid commanders planning air, sea and ground operations, the Air Force said. The satellite cost about $40 million to build in 1981, Clements said. By today\'s dollars, the price tag is closer to $60 million. The Atlas E program costs $30 million to $40 million per year to launch two payloads, he said. The satellite will allow forecasters to track existing and developing weather patterns over remote areas. It will also be used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and similar civilian agencies.\r\n'),(1459,2,'A man who pleaded guilty in connection with an elaborate scheme to sell stolen computer plans to the Soviet Union has been sentenced to six years in federal prison. Kevin Anderson, 30, pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to violate export laws and wire fraud in a plea bargain that apparently required his testimony against his alleged co-conspirator, Charles McVey. He had faced a maximum of 15 years. McVey is awaiting extradition from Canada for his role in the failed caper involving $4 million worth of technology manuals and programs from the Saxpy Corp. of Sunnyvale. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 12 years for Anderson, citing the case\'s ``extraordinary seriousness.\'\' But U.S. District Judge William Ingram said at Friday\'s sentencing he was mainly concerned about the theft of materials from Saxpy and less about the purported danger to national security posed by the 1987 scheme, which was never completed. Because of the Saxpy computer\'s capabilities in antisubmarine warfare, the case threatened national security, prosecutors contended. ``The American computer technology involved in this case is among the most sophisticated and highly sought after by the Soviet bloc,\'\' the U.S. Department of Commerce said in a statement issued Friday. ``The documents and programs stolen from Saxpy would have allowed the Soviets to use this technology in anti-submarine warfare applicatons. ... If the shipments were successful, it would have been a major blow to our national security.\'\' Defense attorneys charged that federal officials had ``hyped\'\' charges in the case, saying they claimed Anderson had stolen ``the crown jewels of technology ... when it was really rhinestones at best.\'\' David Ellison, one of Anderson\'s attorneys, said that with credit for time served, Anderson could be free in 18 months.\r\n'),(1460,2,'Thousands of revelers jammed the downtown area Saturday to soak up the suds and kick off Oktoberfest, the world\'s biggest and best-known beer bash. Officials estimate more 6 million people will attend the 2-week-long binge of hoopla and are expected to consume nearly 1.4 million gallons of the brew. The annual event draws visitors from both home and abroad to savor the traditional Octoberfest fare _ hamhocks, sauerkraut, grilled chicken and sausages _ washed down with glasses of beer to the sound of blaring Bavarian folk music. The festival got its start as a wedding party when on Oct. 12, 1810, when Crown Prince Ludwig, who later became King Ludwig I of Bavaria, married Princess Therese von Saxony-Hilburgshausen. That five-day celebration was held on the same patch of ground where the event is held today. During the early Octoberfests, the royal family paid the costs of the festival, but that tradition has long since faded and visitors are paying record prices for their brew this year. According to festival organizers, a liter of beer will cost on average about $3.70. Organizers said they expected consumption to equal or top last year\'s figures. Last year, revelers drank 1,396,720 gallons of brew and consumed a total of 732,859 grilled chickens and 349,594 pork sausages. Since its inception, the annual event has only been canceled 24 times, in 1854 and 1873 because of cholera epidemics, and during and after World War I and World War II.\r\n'),(1461,2,'Nearly half of the Arco Chemical Co. plant employees were returning to work today but the plant remained out of operation as investigators tried to determine what caused an explosion that killed 17 workers last week. About 150 of the plant\'s 350 workers were told to return to work, said Gerald Davis, Arco Chemical spokesman. ``We\'ll just bring some administrators in,\'\' Davis said. ``Other employees will be out until a judgment is made about the safety at the plant and we will continue to pay their salaries and try to keep them informed about what\'s happening in the plant.\'\' The sprawling plant complex will be brought back into operation in phases that could span several months, Davis said. Company officials and representatives from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration toured the crumbled remains of a block-long area of the 564-acre chemical plant on Sunday. Seventeen workers from Arco and contractors Austin Industrial Inc. and Waste Processers Industries Inc. were killed Thursday night when a wastewater tank exploded in a fireball. Investigators have been unable to determine the cause of the blast. The widow of a millwright killed Thursday said her husband called her a half hour before the plant blew up, saying workers restarting equipment there were afraid it might explode. Lori Davis said her husband, Michael Davis, said they were afraid to restart a compressor that they had fixed. ``They thought it might blow,\'\' Mrs. Davis said. Harold Sorgenti, president and chief executive officer of Arco Chemical, earlier said workers were repairing an electric compressor near a 900,000-gallon wastewater treatment tank when the explosion occurred. The tank separates hydrocarbons from water and then a compressor pumps the sometimes volatile vapors into a pipeline where impurities can be removed before releasing the gases to the atmosphere, officials said.\r\n'),(1462,2,'Rebels of Uganda\'s Holy Spirit Movement have released seven kidnapped priests and nuns after the Roman Catholic Church met their demands for medical supplies, a church official said Tuesday. The Rev. Agostoni Tarcis, secretary of the church\'s Justice and Peace Commission, said the abductions occurred Saturday at Amuru Mission, 19 miles from the northern provincial capital, Gulu, after an abortive rebel raid on nearby Lacor mission hospital for drugs. ``The rebels held the hostages, demanding drugs in exchange for their release,\'\' Tarcis said. They freed their victims, all Ugandans, the next day after the church handed over an unspecified amount of medication. In March, rebels belonging to the same group attacked Lacor hospital and got away with large quantities of drugs. Since then, government troops have guarded the medical center. The government of President Yoweri Museveni, who seized power in January 1986, is fighting several different rebel groups in northern and eastern Uganda.\r\n'),(1463,2,'Health care products giant Johnson & Johnson on Thursday blamed loan payments in Argentina for a 23.2 percent dip in earnings despite a 16.1 percent rise in sales for the first quarter of 1990. Earnings for the period were $244 million, or 73 cents per share, on sales of $2.84 billion, compared with $317 million, or 95 cents per share, on sales of $2.45 billion for the same period a year ago. The latest results were reduced by a nonrecurring charge of $125 million resulting from paying off an Argentine subsidiary\'s loan that was growing rapidly because of inflation in that country. Excluding the nonrecurring costs, the company said its earnings would have risen 16.4 percent. ``We are very pleased with the 16 percent increase in sales, especially in the light of the extreme competitive environment in the domestic consumer environment,\'\' Johnson & Johnson Chairman Ralph S. Larsen said in a statement. ``The increase reflects substantial sales gains from worldwide and professional operations, as well as strong international revenues from our Consumer businesses,\'\' he said. Larsen said sales of six key products, including a blood screening product for Hepatitis C, increased substantially in the quarter. Johnson & Johnson is the world\'s largest manufacturer of health care products serving consumer, pharmaceutical and professional markets. It reported 1989 sales of $9.76 billion.\r\n'),(1464,2,'A $66 million lawsuit has been filed charging that a law firm and its major client, Shell Oil Co., conspired to cover up years of pollution at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. Travelers Insurance Co., which insured Shell\'s arsenal operations from 1952 to 1975, charged that the oil giant failed for decades to tell underwriters about environmental destruction at the chemical production site north of Stapleton International Airport. The complex lawsuit, filed Nov. 1 in California, is unusual in its accusation that the Denver law firm Holme Roberts conspired with a client. The Army, which leased arsenal space to Shell, sued the oil giant in December 1983 to force it to join the $2 billion cleanup of the 27-square-mile facility. Shell hired Holme Roberts as its attorneys in the case. One month later, Travelers agreed to pay 55 percent _ $16 million _ of Shell\'s costs of defending itself against that suit. Travelers is asking for return of the $16 million plus $50 million in punitive damages. Travelers said Shell ``knowingly and intentionally released pollutants into the environment since commencement of its operations at the arsenal in 1952.\'\' It also charged that Holme Roberts learned of the extent of Shell\'s pollution at the arsenal while representing Shell. A spokesman for Holme Roberts said the lawsuit was ``totally without foundation,\'\' and a Shell corporate spokeswoman said the accusations were ``totally without merit.\'\' In a separate case, Shell is suing Travelers and 250 other insurance companies to force them to share the entire cost of the cleanup bill. That trial is in its second year in San Mateo County (Calif.) Superior Court. Travelers charged in its lawsuit that Shell and Holme Roberts are using Travelers-financed evidence from the Army case against Travelers itself in the California insurance trial.\r\n'),(1465,2,'At least two companies hired by the Energy Department as independent investigators of environmental and safety conditions at nuclear weapons plants are on the payroll at facilities they investigated, government records show. Others participating in the audits had bid for Energy Department contracts at sites they investigated, although they were not yet working there. Still others, while not associated with the plants they audited, are the Energy Department\'s prime contractors at other nuclear bomb factories. Written department guidelines for carrying out the ``independent tiger team\'\' investigations include a provision aimed at avoiding organizational conflicts of interest. It defines such a conflict as a situation in which a contractor ``has past, present or currently planned interests that either directly or indirectly ... may relate to the work to be performed\'\' and which may bias its judgment. The tiger teams were assembled by Energy Secretary James D. Watkins last summer to give an independent view of the plants\' compliance with state and federal environmental, safety and health standards. The auditing work is meant to lay the groundwork for actions to correct unsafe and illegal practices at the plants. Virtually all 17 major weapons facilities have severe environmental problems; estimates of the cost of cleaning up production wastes are as high as $100 billion. Watkins publicly stressed the independence of the tiger teams but did not explain that many of the experts would be tied to the weapons business. The Energy Department, which owns the plants, declined to comment on whether the contractors\' connections to the weapons industry amount to a conflict of interest that undermines the independence of the investigations or taints the findings. Department spokeswoman Catherine Kaliniak said the department would prefer to use its own employees for this work, ``but we don\'t have the people to do it.\'\' Each team is headed by a small number of department officials, but most of the scientific work is done by contract employees. Most have extensive backgrounds in nuclear environmental and safety matters. A review of department records as well as interviews with government and industry officials show that of the eight weapons plant investigations done last year, at least three involved companies that held other Energy Department contracts at the same sites or were bidding for contract work at those facilities. _The engineering and environmental consulting firm NUS Corp. of Gaithersburg, Md., was on the tiger team that investigated the Y-12 uranium processing plant at Oak Ridge, Tenn., last fall. According to department records, NUS at the same time was working for the Oak Ridge reservation on an environmental study of its nuclear and hazardous waste management. The Y-12 plant is one of several operations at the Oak Ridge reservation. NUS\'s Oak Ridge contract was awarded Nov. 8, 1988, and was valued at $1.4 million. The firm also holds contracts at weapons facilities in South Carolina and Idaho. NUS spokesman Don Couchman declined to discuss any aspect of the firm\'s work for the Energy Department. _Science Applications International Corp. of La Jolla, Calif., helped evaluate the Nevada Test Site, which conducts underground nuclear weapons tests. The company at the same time was working at the site under two Energy Department contracts with a combined value of $100 million. Most of its work is at a proposed high-level nuclear waste dump at the site that was not part of the tiger team audit. _ICF Kaiser Engineers, an engineering and construction company based in Oakland, Calif., participated in tiger team audits at the Nevada Test Site. ICF held no Energy Department contracts at the test site at the time of the investigation last November, but it was bidding for a $5 million job to help the facility\'s prime contractor, Reynolds Electrical & Engineering Co., Inc., develop and carry out an environmental cleanup program there. ICF Kaiser announced it won the contract 10 days after the on-site tiger team work ended Dec. 1. Similarly, records show the company participated in tiger team investigations at the Fernald uranium processing plant in Ohio and the Y-12 Oak Ridge plant while it was a bidder for major Energy Department contracts at both sites. The contract at Oak Ridge is valued at $505 million over five years, according to Bob Lynch, deputy director of the department\'s field office there. Marc Tipermas, executive vice president of ICF, said in a telephone interview that he saw no conflict of interest in his company\'s involvement in the tiger team work. He said he was not sure whether, in choosing ICF for the work, the department knew or cared about the company\'s other work at the weapons plants. ``In order to get this job done well and quickly, contractors had to be used,\'\' Tipermas said. ``Like many other companies, we were drafted. We were helter-skelter pulled onto these teams.\'\' The Energy Department has used private contractors to run the nuclear weapons plants since they were built as part of the World War II Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. The contracting system has left the department with little internal expertise in this area and a tendency to rely on the weapons makers to police themselves. Watkins strongly advocates hiring more federal employees with environmental, safety and health expertise to lessen the dependence on private contractors. Although the department insists that the tiger team members\' links to the weapons industry do not compromise their objectivity as judges of environmental and safety conditions at the plants, some outside experts disagree. ``It\'s inevitably a potential conflict when a contractor is reviewing another contractor, and the reason is that any possible criticism of one contractor might lead to future business for another contractor,\'\' said Donald F. Kettl, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University and author of a book on government use of contractors. Other tiger team members included companies in charge of running nuclear weapons plants, though not the ones they investigated. These include EG&G Inc., which is the prime contractor at the Rocky Flats plutonium processing plant near Denver, the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory at Idaho Falls, which processes naval nuclear fuels, and the Mound Laboratory near Dayton, Ohio, which makes detonators for nuclear arms. Martin Marietta Energy Systems Inc., which runs the Oak Ridge facilities, participated in some other audits, as did subsidiaries of Westinghouse Electric Corp., which runs several weapons sites, and Mason and Hangar Silas Mason Co., operator of the Pantex final weapons assembly plant near Amarillo, Texas.\r\n'),(1466,2,'Fire-spitting helicopters were dispatched to Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday to help protect the Old Faithful geyser area from a 6,000-acre blaze, part of the worst series of fires in the park in nearly a century. Almost 1,000 firefighters were summoned to the scene, but officials had not decided as of early Tuesday evening whether to actively fight the fire, one of a dozen burning in the oldest national park. The fires have charred more than 70,000 acres in the 2.2 million-acre park, the nation\'s oldest national park. One fire, the 47,000-acre blaze dubbed ``Clover Mist\'\' on the eastern edge of Yellowstone, made two jumps into Shoshone National Forest. Interior Secretary Donald Hodel made plans to tour Yellowstone by helicopter Wednesday to get a first-hand view of the devastation. Winds were pushing the Old Faithful fire away from the geyser complex, which includes an historic inn and several other buildings. But fire managers decided as a safeguard to call in ``heli-torches\'\' that can spew a napalm-like substance. If officials decide to use them, the copters will be used to start ``backfires\'\' to burn away brush in the main fire\'s path. The fire, which started Friday in the adjacent Targhee National Forest in Idaho, burned roughly 10 miles west of Old Faithful, and about 10-15 miles south of Madison Junction, said Fire Information Officer Bruce Fox. Later estimated differed on how far the fire was from Old Faithful, ranging from about 6 miles to 10 miles, but officials agreed that it was still burning toward the northeast, a direction would bypass the geyser. Spokesmen stressed that their figures on total acreage burned also were estimates. Officials said they didn\'t believe firefighters could ever douse the flames. ``These fires are going to burn until the weather puts them out,\'\' said Fox. A fire camp was established 13 miles north of Old Faithful in an open field, where resting firefighters relaxed in tents or simply stretched out on the ground. Other firefighters were at Old Faithful picking the area clean of downed trees, piles of firewood, twigs and pine needles that could feed embers carried by winds to the area. They also cleared the ground around a microwave tower that provides Old Faithful\'s communications with the rest of the park. Plans were made to burn a five-mile-long meadow, possibly on Wednesday, to clear out the dry vegetation and thus slow the fire if it turned toward Old Faithful, said Fox. ``With the worst-case weather scenario (strong winds out of the west), that probably wouldn\'t hold it. But it would definitely slow it down,\'\' he said. ``If all else fails, we\'ll backfire Old Faithful.\'\' Eighty firefighters were sent to an area near Frost Lake, located 10 miles north of Yellowstone\'s East Entrance, where flames had blackened about 200 acres since the fire moved into the national forest during the weekend, said forest spokesman Dave Damron. Another 60 were 10 miles farther to the north where the ``Canoe Lake\'\' fire had burned about 50 acres, he said. Unusually hot and dry conditions this summer have left Yellowstone and the rest of northwestern Wyoming tinder-box dry. ``The last time they had this much fire in the park was in the late 1800s,\'\' said Incident Commander Larry Caplinger. ``The fuel conditions, and the weather conditions, lend themselves to extreme fire potential. ``The outlook is we probably got at least three long months of fire season ahead of us in this part of the country,\'\' he added. ``We could be in for the beginning of the siege of \'88.\'\' Although no closures of services or accommodations at Old Faithful had been ordered, park visitors were advised such closures may eventually be necessary. Fires have forced the closure of Grant Village and the road from there south to the South Entrance. At Grant Village, about 500 firefighters were continuing to fight flames from the the Shoshone and Red fires that had spread to 20,200 acres. The village includes a small hotel and some trailers and apartments for park service personnel. Hot embers shooting ahead of the fires Monday night burned through power lines at the area of the village and set one building on fire. Officials said the structure wasn\'t seriously damaged. Flames also had burned around the Lewis Lake campground, torching trees along the perimeter of the area, according to fire officials. In the Teton Wilderness that borders Yellowstone on the south, some 690 firefighters worked Tuesday along the northern edge of the 24,400-acre Mink Creek fire. While good progress was made during the day on the southern end of the fire, thunderstorms packing some erratic winds were creating a problem on the northern end, which had burned about 1,200 acres into Yellowstone\'s remote backcountry.\r\n'),(1467,2,'The president and chief executive officer of CPC International Inc., Charles R. Shoemate, also will serve as chairman of the board, the food company announced Wednesday. Shoemate, 50, succeeds James R. Eiszner, who died Sept. 11. Shoemate joined CPC in 1962 and has held positions in manufacturing, finance and management within the consumer foods and corn refining businesses. He became president in October 1988. Based in Englewood Cliffs, CPC had sales of $5.1 billion last year. Among its U.S. brands are Hellmann\'s mayonnaise, Skippy peanut butter and Mazola corn oil and margarine.\r\n'),(1468,2,'The dollar fell against most major currencies in European trading today. Gold was quoted nominally softer. The dollar lost ground against the yen in Tokyo today, closing at 144.72 yen, down 0.78 yen from Thursday\'s close of 145.50 yen. Later in London, the dollar traded at 145.15 yen. Traders sold the West German mark for the yen throughout the day to take profits on overbought mark positions, dealers said. Concerns about the implications of a proposal to unify the two German monetary systems, along with profit-taking, helped push the mark lower, traders said. Other dollar rates at midmorning, compared with late Thursday\'s prices, included: 1.6665 West German marks, down from 1.6872; 1.4890 Swiss francs, down from 1.4905; 5.6710 French francs, down from 5.6725; 1.8840 Dutch guilders, up from 1.8810; 1,241.00 Italian lire, down from 1,241.50; and 1.1940 Canadian dollars, down from 1.1970. The British pound traded at $1.6910, compared with $1.6885 late Thursday. London\'s major gold dealers fixed a recommended price of $418.50 at midmorning, up from $417.75 bid late Thursday. In Zurich, the bid price was $418.75, up from $417.75 bid late Thursday. Gold in Hong Kong rose 96 cents an ounce today, to close at $417.42. Silver traded at a bid price of $5.34 a troy ounce, up from Thursday\'s $5.32.\r\n'),(1469,2,'Superstitions generally cast Friday the 13th into a bad luck day for the so-called ``triskaidekaphobics\'\' who fear it, but the number 13 also has some good signs. In this Liberty Bell city the 13 colonies declared independence, and the 13-letter slogan ``E Pluribus Unum\'\' is placed on U.S. coins. Also Philadelphia is the headquarters for the Friday the 13th club, founded 54 years ago by 13 men, limits membership to 13 and only meets on Friday the 13th. ``We replace members only when someone dies or leaves town,\'\' member Arthur Klein said of the club, whose theme is to defy all the superstitutions. This Friday the 13th, the club will gather at 8:13 a.m. in a paint warehouse where chairman Max Buten has assembled some ladders. Not only will members walk under the ladders. They also will open black umbrellas, break mirrors and spill salt. They may even have a few black cats. Scared? ``Not us,\'\' said Klein, who wouldn\'t say if he would be carrying a rabbit\'s foot or would be knocking on wood when walking under the ladders. ``As soon as this meeting\'s over I\'m asking for a substantial premium reduction on my warehouse\'s catastrophe insurance,\'\' Buten said. Nordic myth has it that number 13 first became unlucky a few thousand years ago when, at a banquet of a dozen benevolent gods, an uninvited bad god intruded and started a fight that killed the most popular god. Another explanation for calling it a bad day was that Jesus was crucified on a Friday and there were 13 at his Last Supper. Many buildings omit 13 when numbering floors. Some hospitals don\'t have a room 13. Some people won\'t start a trip on the 13th. Klein isn\'t worried about defying the superstitions. ``Hey, we\'ve been meeting every Friday the 13th, and nothing\'s stopped us yet,\'\' he said. There\'s a target date for stopping, though. The last scheduled meeting, according to the club\'s charter, is Friday, Oct. 13, 2000.\r\n'),(1470,2,'Candidate Sonny Bono isn\'t sure how he\'ll do in this desert resort\'s mayoral election Tuesday, but just ask him about his ex-wife\'s chances for an Oscar. ``I had this vision,\'\' Bono said. ``This incredible thought occurred to me. `Cher\'s going to win the Academy Award.\' I called her yesterday. I said, `Cher, you\'re going to win.\' ``She said, `From your mouth to God\'s ear.\'\'\' Cher is a nominee for Best Actress in Monday night\'s Academy Awards for her performance in ``Moonstruck.\'\' And her former singing and marriage partner is on the ballot for mayor the next day in this celebrity desert resort. ``Wouldn\'t it be fun if she won the Academy Award and I was elected mayor?\'\' Bono said in a recent interview at his lavish mansion here. `It would be unprecedented in that Sonny and Cher stays alive in so many ways, years later.\'\' It\'s been 23 years since the bell-bottomed, fur-vested couple hit the top of the record charts singing ``I\'ve Got You Babe,\'\' and 14 years since both their television show and marriage ended. Bono, who recently appeared in offbeat movie ``Hairspray\'\' and also runs a restaurant, announced his candidacy a year ago, drawing hoots and howls from people who remembered him as the long-haired butt of Cher\'s jokes and whose career bottomed out after guest spots on ``Love Boat\'\' and ``Fantasy Island.\'\' ``They thought it was a joke,\'\' Bono said of townspeople\'s reaction to his candidacy. ``They came around because I put my body out there for people to start shooting at. And people came around. They now take me very seriously.\'\' Show business, he says, was never as tough as running for office. ``Not even close!\'\' The pressure and anxiety reached major proportions March 31 when he burst into a televised candidates\' forum and exploded at the moderator for not explaining that he wasn\'t participating because his pregnant fourth wife, Mary, 26, was hospitalized with the flu. The couple\'s first child is due April 17. ``I shouldn\'t have gotten that emotional or let it affect me that much. But it did,\'\' he said apologetically. Although there are seven candidates for mayor, the media spotlight is on Bono. ``We got calls from Europe, an Australian television station. ABC is coming in tomorrow. It\'s just crazy,\'\' said campaign worker Glenn Symonds. Bono is fueling his campaign by selling $15 ``Sonny Bono for Mayor\'\' T-shirts. The sales of shirts, buttons and bumper stickers account for $37,000 of his $53,000 campaign war chest, the largest of the candidates. Bono\'s opponents are Vice Mayor Eli Birer, businesswoman Deyna Hodges, accountant Lloyd Maryanov, Agua Caliente Indian Tribe Secretary Ray Patencio, real estate agent Neil Beatty and retired dentist Lewis Friedman. ``I\'ve never run against a celebrity before. It\'s really tough,\'\' Birer said. Bono moved to the desert four years ago to escape Los Angeles. The tranquility relaxed him, and he enjoyed the small-town atmosphere. But he soon had run-ins with city officials over the size of a sign for his Italian restaurant, ``Bono,\'\' and about a retaining wall he was building at his home. So, like Carmel\'s Clint Eastwood, he decided to run for mayor. ``It was very dictatorial, very controlled, very hostile,\'\' Bono said of the city government. ``I have a big investment in this city. I don\'t want to see it deteriorate or decline.\'\' Incumbent Frank Bogert, 76, is stepping down after two two-year terms. The new mayor will serve a four-year term and be paid $15,000 a year. The part-time, non-partisan official presides over the City Council, while a city manager handles daily operations and makes recommendations to the council. Whatever townspeople think of Bono\'s candidacy, most agree that Palm Springs needs revitalization. It has lost business, clout and tourists to other nearby desert communities such as Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage, where Frank Sinatra lives. If he\'s elected, Bono has plans to draw tourists to this town 120 miles southeast of Los Angeles, including a film festival with big-name celebrities, a sporting event such as a marathon or triathalon and concerts. But win or lose, Bono knows he made a difference by getting the issues discussed and people interested. An election in this community of 38,000 residents usually draws about 6,000 of its 18,000 registered voters. That\'s expected to double Tuesday. ``At least I added excitement to the race,\'\' he said. ``It would have been a yawn without me.\'\'\r\n'),(1471,2,'An international group of lawyers is planning a court challenge to the government screening process that determines which Vietnamese boat people are to be forcibly repatriated, a spokesman said today. ``We think that there are cases of persons who are genuine refugees who have fallen through the cracks in the process\'\' and were mistakenly classified as illegal immigrants, said David Clark, senior lecturer in political science at Hong Kong University. This British colony once considered all Vietnamese who arrived by boat to seek asylum as refugees eligible for resettlement overseas. But the government, facing a mounting influx of Vietnamese, decided in June 1988 to classify arriving boat people as illegal immigrants subject to repatriation unless they could prove they fled persecution in their Communist homeland. About 85 percent of the approximately 44,000 boat people who have arrived under the new policy are expected to face forced repatriation. The current screening process involves an interview with an immigration officer and gives the opportunity for one appeal. So far, 51 boat people have been forcibly repatriated and about 1,000 have gone back voluntarily. The London-based human rights organization Amnesty International earlier this week criticized the program, saying immigration officers often have scant knowledge of the situation in Vietnam and that translating services need improvement. The group of lawyers, which includes members from the United States and Britain, has selected nine boat people who were screened out by immigration officials and had their appeals denied. ``We have evidence in those cases that there were various defects\'\' in the process, said Clark. He added that the Vietnamese chosen for the case appear to have a good claim to being classified as refugees. The lawyers plan to go to the colony\'s High Court with their complaints in a few weeks to seek the overturn of the screening results, said Clark, who has taught administrative law in Hong Kong for 11 years. ``It will be a tough case to win,\'\' he said. ``The government will fight it tooth and nail.\' If the High Court rules against the challenge, the lawyers\' group can take the case to the Court of Appeal in Hong Kong and then the Privy Council in London. If that fails, the group may take action against the screening process through the European Commission of Human Rights. The impetus for the legal challenge came largely from Americans Arthur Helton, of the Lawyers\' Committee for Human Rights; Janelle Diller, of the Indochina Resource Action Center, and Briton David Burgess.\r\n'),(1472,2,'Delegates of Mauritius stormed out of the final session of the Organization of African Unity summit Saturday and accused the OAU of hypocrisy for criticizing their nation\'s increased trade with South Africa. ``These self-righteous, hypocritical accusations are an insult to Mauritius,\'\' said Satoam Boolall, the island nation\'s chief representative at the summit. ``My government feels that it is being unfairly and unjustly singled out.\'\' Boolall, of Mauritius\' Foreign Ministry, said Prime Minister Aneerood Jugnauth ordered the delegation to walk out of the session. Conference sources said the Comoros Islands and the Seychelles, two other Indian Ocean islands, also protested the summit\'s adoption of an OAU Liberation Committee report expressing embarrassment and concern at their growing trade ties with South Africa. Thirty heads of state attended the OAU\'s 25th anniversary celebrations and its 24th summit in Addis Ababa, the organization\'s headquarters. OAU Secretary-General Ide Oumarou of Niger said the final resolution criticized those African nations that do not border South Africa and whose economic relationship with the white-dominated government was ``voluntary and deliberate.\'\' He said the organization was not being hypocritical in not citing the countries whose geographical proximity to South African and colonial heritages have forced their economies to be integrated into that of South Africa. Black Africa does about $1 billion a year business with South Africa, most of it covert. The summit established a committee to investigate that. It also asked the OAU secretariat to report on the financial cost of opening a Washington D.C. office to back efforts encouraging passage of a U.S. bill supporting economic sanctions against South Africa. The OAU member countries repeated longstanding calls for the United States to use its influence with Pretoria to ensure the speedy implementation of U.N. Resolution 435, calling for a cease-fire and referendum in Namibia, which South Africa administers. The summit also said it would work toward convening a U.N. Security Concil meeting to ``examine the totality of racist South Africa\'s reprehensive policies and acts of state terrorism in South Africa, Namibia and the region.\'\' The OAU discussed the $12 million owed by 34 member states to the organization\'s fund for the support of liberation movements. A resolution urged that the members owing money, some of which have never contributed, to clear their debts within two years ``to enable national liberation movements to intensify the armed struggle in Namibia and South Africa.\'\' President Moussa Traore of Mali, newly-elected chairman of the OAU, told reporters the pan-African body will continue to pursue its call for a unified front of the African National Congress, the main guerrilla movement fighting white domination in South Africa, and the much smaller Pan Africanist Congress, which are fighting South Africa\'s government. Under South Africa\'s system of apartheid, the nation\'s 26 million blacks have no voice in national affairs. The 5 million whites control the economy and maintain separate schools, districts and health services.\r\n'),(1473,2,'Former Fruehauf Corp. chief execitve Neal Combs, who ran the company when it was dismantled to meet leveraged buyout debts, has been replaced as head of its truck-trailer operation. Combs was replaced Tuesday as Fruehauf Trailer Corp.\'s chief executive by Terex Corp. President Woodward Baldus, officials said. Green Bay, Wis.-based Terex bought Fruehauf\'s trailer business last August as Fruehauf assets were sold off to meet debts from a $1.5-billion leveraged buyout by management. Fruehauf Trailer Corp. continues as a Terex subsidiary. Combs went to Terex with the trailer business. Combs could not be reached for comment Wednesday at Fruehauf or at his home. ``Combs was asked to resign,\'\' Terex spokesman Jeff Zilka said, but declined further comment. The last of the former Fruehauf\'s assets, Kelsey-Hayes Co., maker of auto parts such as aluminum wheels and anti-lock braking systems, was sold to Canada\'s Varity Corp. last November. Fruehauf Trailer employs about 5,100 people in its U.S. operations.\r\n'),(1474,2,'At 3 a.m., the telephone buzzes Adnan Khashoggi awake in his luxurious bedroom, 47 floors above Manhattan. The Saudi Arabian financier plugs the phone into a transmitter locked around his ankle, sends a signal and goes back to sleep. Most people who deal in billions of dollars and hobnob with presidents and kings might think it demeaning to be monitored so. But Khashoggi seems amused by this nightly ritual that lets authorities check his whereabouts outside U.S. District Court, where he is on trial with former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos. ``I call it the government\'s wake-up service. It wakes me up in time for morning prayers,\'\' joked Khashoggi, a Moslem. Raising a pants leg to reveal the black, wristwatch-like gadget, he added: ``When this (trial) is over, I might go into selling these things. This one, I am going to auction off _ for charity.\'\' It wouldn\'t be the first time ``A.K.,\'\' as his intimates call him, found a business opportunity in an unexpected place. He has done that for years on his way to becoming one of the world\'s most famous citizens and, for a time, perhaps its richest. Despite a series of business setbacks in recent years, Khashoggi is so wealthy that numbers are almost irrelevant. ``Adnan would consider himself penniless if he was down to his last hundred million,\'\' says James Linn, his lawyer. Khashoggi, 54, is vague about his current worth but doubts that he ever was the world\'s richest man. He says that title belongs to his friend the Sultan of Brunei. His wealth may be best judged by his bail. He put up the required $10 million, but authorities said it was small change to Khashoggi, and feared he would forfeit it for freedom. He was released from jail only after King Fahd of Saudi Arabia sent a letter guaranteeing that he would not attempt to flee, and after he agreed to wear the monitoring device. In an interview at his lavish apartment, with its artworks by Dufy and Miro and its sweeping views of the city, Khashoggi described an investment portfolio that once ranged over 35 countries. ``In my heyday I used to earn $80 million to $100 million a year and probably spent, on this style of life, $40 million,\'\' he said. ``But when they say I am the world\'s richest man, how do they come to this conclusion? I don\'t have $10 billion in the bank.\'\' When a $600 million Salt Lake City project went bust in 1987, he lost $300 million. ``That was the beginning of the disaster stories. Because it was me, everybody thought I went bankrupt, but it was not true,\'\' he said. Khashoggi reportedly was a middleman and financier of the Iran-Contra affair, in which profits from secret U.S. arms sales to Iran were channeled to rebel groups fighting the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. In his opening statement at the trial, Linn tried to dispel the idea that there was something wrong with being an arms trader, saying all Khashoggi\'s arms dealings had U.S. and Saudi government approval. Khashoggi describes himself as an ``international salesman,\'\' and ``merchant banker.\'\' He insists there is nothing sinister or mysterious about what he does. ``I am a hard-working man, and I have to pay my bills,\'\' he said. ``I am just like you _ with a few extra zeros.\'\' Despite his wealth, Khashoggi takes the subway to and from court to avoid traffic. Last week, when the train stalled, he walked 29 blocks home; few passersby took notice of the short, portly man talking into a hand-held telephone as he strode up Park Avenue. In court, he dozes off occasionally as testimony focuses mainly on Mrs. Marcos\' alleged financial misdeeds. The government claims she and her late husband, Ferdinand, looted their country\'s treasury of about $220 million, depositing some in secret Swiss bank accounts and spending more on lavish living and real estate purchases. Khashoggi is charged with mail fraud and obstruction of justice. It is alleged that he forged documents to help conceal the Marcoses ownership of four New York office buildings and an art collection bought with stolen funds. He concedes that he was ``foolish\'\' to get involved with the Marcoses, but contends he committed no crime because the document backdating occurred in 1985, the year before Marcos was ousted from power and a U.S. court froze all transactions involving the buildings. ``When you ask me why this trial is unfair, it is because they (the prosecutors) know all this,\'\' he said. ``Without me, they don\'t have a case. They want to get the Marcoses, by hook or by crook.\'\' Khashoggi said he believes Judge John F. Keenan eventually will dismiss the charges against him, but if not, he\'ll be acquitted by the jury. ``These people are not going to be unfair,\'\' he said. And he contended the trial is doing great damage to America\'s image in the Middle East. ``This case has become a symbol of fear,\'\' he said. ``I am trying to say, `Hey, guys, this is not America.\' We will have our day in court and they will see that it is not America, but a corner street called New York.\'\'\r\n'),(1475,2,'A man who set his gasoline-soaked clothes on fire and walked down the aisle of a church during a prayer service died Sunday from his burns, though worshippers tried to save him by dousing the flames. The songs of a children\'s choir gave way to hysterical screams as worshippers at Friendship Baptist Church noticed Willie J. Boone, 41. Saturday night\'s musical program was almost over when ``I saw the children looking curious and I looked back\'\' from the first row, said the Rev. Jimmy L. Mills. ``I saw this young man coming up the middle aisle ablaze of fire.\'\' ``Most of (the children) went into hysterics,\'\' he said. ``It was a terrible tragedy.\'\' The pastor said he and deacons used a fire extinguisher to douse the flames on the man\'s clothes ``and asked him to go out and sit on the front porch and that\'s where he went until the police arrived.\'\' On the porch, Boone said, ``It\'s all right,\'\' and collapsed, Mills said. Boone suffered burns over his entire body except the soles of his feet, said patient representative Karen Hall at the Medical Center of Central Georgia. Mills, pastor of the downtown Macon church for 30 years, said Boone gave no clue to his motive and was a stranger to the 40 to 50 people in the church sanctuary.\r\n'),