Altoona Mirror (Newspaper) - December 5, 1991, Altoona, Pennsylvania Section previews local winter sports season Mike Reid's He's just one of my boys Altoona Partly cloudy Keep the shovel handy Mirror photo by Rosemary Fama THE FIRST REAL SNOW of winter meant shoveling for Ken Potter at the Penn Lincoln Elementary School on Wednesday morning A with Air Science Consultants in Pittsburgh said the area could see an inch or so of snow tonight Also he said temperatures will rise to 30 or 35 degrees Friday and into the 40s this weekend Blair to eliminate tax-exempt status of 400 properties By Phil Ray Staff Writer Church parking lots and parsonages will be put back on the tax rolls according to the Blair County commissioners who reviewed about 400 tax-exempt properties in the county this morning Commissioners William C Stouffer John and Donna D Gority are aware the ruling may be controversial but as Mrs Gonty explained the county board has been overly generous with its tax lions in the past and it has decided the time has to reverse the process The commissioners held an informal meeting with Assessor Charles McGram has been reviewing the county's tax exemptions McGrain said many counties already tax church parking lots and and other buildings owned by non- profit groups that Blair County has long exempted For example McGrain said convents are not eligible for exoneration despite Blair County it Ebersole said he thinks Blair County should begin ing more strictly to tax laws There is going to be some angry people but it's the Ebersole said If we have been overly generous and it appears to me we have we have to trust Bud McGrain to give us that Mrs Gority said Stouffer said the commissioners sent McGrain to a seminar recently and found put that in many Blair was ing property that other counties have long taxed McGrain said the properties headed back to the tax rolls are worth about million according to county property tax figures Since the values the county uses are based See Tax exempt on Page AZ Altoona Pa Dec Forecast A4 50 cents Wonder Aspirin may fight cancer studies suggest By David Brown The Washington Post To the ever-expanding list of medical uses researchers have an astonishing new the humble let may slow or even prevent colon cancer Several studies bolstered by experiments in animals are building a convincing though still unproved case that regular low doses of aspirin may cut nearly in half the risk of death from the country's second deadliest cancer If further research bears out recent ings reputation as the biggest pharmaceutical the century mil seem unquestioned The drug is used widely in the prevention of heart dis- ease and strike is the first-choice therapy in some forms of arthritis and has shown pre- liminary benefit in preventing certain com- of pregnancy addition to its traditional role as mild and reducer i The newest findings came in a study of risk factors for cancer among 1.2 men and women whose health is being lowed by the American Cancer Society The study published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine examined ence of about people between 1982 and 1988 Women who reported taking aspiria at least 10 times a month in the year study started had a 42 percent lower rate of death from colon cancer over the next six years Hen with similar aspirin consumption had a 40 percent reduction in death rate from that cancer People who took aspirin less frequently had a smaller reduction in risk but still had colon-cancer death rates lower than those who never took aspirin Acetaminophen often sold as pain had no effect on colon-cancer See Aspirin on Page A2 Terry Anderson reunited with his incredible sister By Mark Fritz Associated Press jubilant ferry Anderson was reunited way station for freed hostages Say who had pressed presidents and prime ministers in a him feed What It's just great It's been so said the journalist the last American hostage in Lebanon from the steps of the U.S military hospital In an intermittent pre ram more than 200 and whooping people greeted the chief Middle East correspondent for The Asso dated Press who was freed Wednesday after days in captivity He responded with waves and large toothy He held the hand of his old daughter Sulome born three months after he was cap tured Also with him was Madeleine Bassil Lebanese i Although she never met Anderson until Wednesday Sulome knew him as Daddy from photos Over the years she had sent poignant written and videotaped greetings to him expressing hopes that he would be home soon On the ground in Wiesbaden the little girl leaned against Anderson smiling his big hand on her shoulder As Anderson stepped from the helicopter that shuttled him from a nearby US air base Mrs Say dashed forward gave him a huge hug and stroked his face They held each other tightly and rocked back and forth On the hospital steps She stood at his side wiping tears of joy from her eyes Asked about the tenacious efforts of Mrs Say to get him freed Anderson Fantastic wasn't It's great to have a sister like that You get yourself in trouble and she just comes along and gets you he joked and the crowd laughed Mrs Say's unrelenting quest to free her brother made her arguably the best-known for the hostages She wrote See Anderson on Page A2 Associated Press FORMER HOSTAGE Terry Anderson greets his sister Peggy Say upon his arrival at Germany early today Steen Cicippio carry Evidence captivity WIESBADEN Germany AP least two of the three Americans freed in Beirut this week will forever carry reminders of the they endured in captivity L Alann released lifetime medication to con- trol seizures and blackouts he suffered when he was beaten by his Lebanese captors a US military doctor said day He is coming out slightly differ said Dr Uwe Fohlmeister the physician But Steen's wife said he would cope with the injury See Hostages on Page A2 Blair eyes central 911 setup Emergency system may based in Hollidaysburg By Phil Ray Staff Writer HOLLIDAYSBURG Jerry L Stephens with the Hollidaysburg Police Department knows that sharing information can make police a lot more effective He remembers that quick retrieval of information led police to crack a glary ring He points out that a good information tem would make it a lot easier for instance to catch the culprits who are vandalizing the property of Councilman James P Covino a recent high-profile case Stephens is a member of a county task that is studying installation of an enhanced Emergency telephone system to serve the entire county The expensive up to 2 million but it would be worth it Ste and the other members of the task force concluded Wednesday Technical experts on the task force will meet next week with the director of the county's emergency management program Lawrence Carroll to decide which options to enhanced system Wednesday a report was presented by the consultants for the project recommending that all dispatch operations in Blair County be in Management Center in that police forces adopt compatible radio frequencies an information records system be included in the new 911 system With the new system a police officer ping a car on the highway would know See 911 system on Page A2 Bush weighs whether to curb robot phone dialers In the Mirror By David Hawkings Mirror Washington Bureau WASHINGTON It is up to ident Bush whether the dinner hour will remain prey to the sales appeals of telephone callers Among the final acts of its 1991 session Congress last week cleared a measure virtually banning the use of automated dialing machines to send messages to American homes It also would allow people time next year o avoid human sales forces probably by putting their names on a new national do not call list that would have to obey As of Monday afternoon the for- mal papers had not yet been ered to the White House Once they arrive the president must either sign the within 10 days or else it is killed by a pocket veto because Congress will not reconvene for month No decision has been made yet what Bush will do with the said a White House spokesman Gary Foster The president has never explicitly threatened a veto But as Congress debated the measure the Office of Management and Budget issued a statement objecting to it as sary saying current patchwork of state laws regulating telemarketing It also said a complete ban on See Phones op Page A2 Births Classified Crossword and other puzzles DID Dr Obituaries B3 Television Oil
