Waterloo Courier (Newspaper) - March 13, 1998, Waterloo, Iowa IH PAGE A2 FRIDAY MARCH NATION WORLD If you are aware of a statement in a Courier story that requires clarification or correction let us know as soon as possible Call or toll-free 1 702 to be connected with the appropriate department editor An article in Tuesday's er on the coming school bond vote intended to relay that Super- Arlis Swartzendruber favors creating a smail school environment in a larger school by designing the facility to have pods not that he has retreated from his stance on larger tary schools An Internet address in a story Sunday about youth job banks was incorrect It should read Lottery Iowa cash game Dally Millions Illinois Pick Three Pick Three Pick Four Pick Four Readers Guide Published evenings Monday through Friday and Sunday mornings by the Waterloo Courier Inc Vol 62 ISSN Subscriptions By carrier Weekdays and Sundays per week Mail subscriptions not accepted where carrier service is able By 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anywhere in Northeast Iowa you can us toll-free from your United States phone with news by pushing between 7 a.m and 6 p.m weekdays or 7 a.m and 10 p.m on Saturdays Senate prepared to tiy Saddam for war crimes WASHINGTON AP The Senate is poised to call for the con- vening of an international crimes tribunal for the purpose of indicting prosecuting and ing Saddam Hussein The measure is largely symbolic a gesture of political frustration in dealing with the Iraqi president It has wide bipartisan support The indictment itself even in absentia could give the United States the high moral the sponsor Sen Arlen Specter said Thursday as the Senate began discussion of the measure A vote was scheduled today Sen Byron L Dorgan another sponsor told the Senate that Saddam had used chemical weapons on his enemies both inside and out- side Iraq had waged war against Iran and Kuwait had attacked Israel and had plotted the assassination of former President Bush A trial would focus international attention on Saddam's record Dorgan said The only ceremony Saddam sein should attend is a trial convened by the United Nations sitting in judgment of a dangerous unrepentant Dorgan said In brief debate Thursday no one spoke against the measure Senate Majority leader Trent Lott a critic of a accord that averted a U.S military strike against Saddam is a strong supporter of the effort Lott has also said he would support increased sanctions money for a radio free Iraq and covert action to bring down the Iraqi president suggesting containment doesn't seem to get what we want The Senate action comes as Lott and other Republicans are voicing displeasure over efforts by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to bridge differences Annan has been in town for two days this week and on Thursday appealed to the United States to pay dues suggesting the United States could lose its voting rights in the General Assembly if the more than billion in back dues remains unpaid Frozen food AP PHOTO Jason Livesey surveys his family's frozen restaurant Rudy's on the shore of Lake Ontario in Oswego summer restaurant opened for the seaon this week despite swirling snow and bitter winds Senate OKs huge highway spending By The Associated Press and Courier Staff WASHINGTON With an eye toward a May 1 line House leaders are closing in on agreement on a giant highway and mass transit The Senate added momentum by passing its version of the billion to finance ing projects through 2003 I believe we have the framework of a transportation that will stay within caps set in the balanced budget deal last year House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday The Senate has billion for highway building and safety programs and billion for mass transit in total an increase of 38 percent over the last six-year period House aides said the Republican leadership had agreed to back House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud proposal to spend about billion on highway and mass transit over the next six years slightly more than the Senate Iowa would receive billion under the Senate version up from the previous level of billion The House version includes erable funding for local projects of national said Gerald Solbeck director of program agement with the Iowa Department The now goes to conference committee Iowa DOT officials are taking a attitude until final funding is known to avoid a mistake like the one made in 1991 when they programmed more than were funded Nevertheless the Senate's approval is a great step Solbeck said Both of them House and ate versions look very which should allow current projects such as the St Paul Minn Avenue of the Saints to remain on schedule A major portion of that project includes the reconstruction of U.S Highway 218 in Northeast Iowa Report of the impending demise was greatly exaggerated NEW YORK AP Hollywood couldn't have written a more perfect ending to a sci-fi thriller Just Wednesday a group of interna- tional astronomers was warning Earthlings that a asteroid was heading toward the planet The streaking mass was likely to pass within miles of us and warned it might might actually impact And if it The asteroid they said would release energy equal to 2 million atomic bombs It could cause tidal waves fires An eruption of dust that could cast the world in shadow for months Asteroid 1997 was added to the International Astronomical Union's list of 108 known ly hazardous or PHOs Astronomers forecast its arrival with startling Thursday Oct 26 2028 about p.m CST If it was only a few months away we should be deadly said the man who issued the asteroid alert Wednesday Brian G Marsden director of the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams in bridge Mass But with 30 years astronomers will solve the problem Actually one day was all they needed Thursday afternoon astronomers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory said new calculations indicated the asteroid would come no closer than miles away from the Earth We are saying now that the of an impact is said ald K Yeomans of JPL A good day to stay in bed BUFFALO AP ING: The superstitious may want to stay inside this evening In a spooky confluence this Friday the 13th coincides with a full moon AND a lunar eclipse You put those together and you will have a triple said Donald Dossey director of The Phobia Center in Asheville It can be just mild anxiety or just a nagging sense of doom and the symptoms go up to full bloom obsessive behavior Some ple won't even get out of bed Nonsense according to Matt Nisbet who is part of a group of professional skeptics who boldly planned to spend today passing out chain letters and throwing them away walking under ladders and smashing a large mirror Our message in a nutshell is you have nothing to said Nisbet whose group publishes the Skeptical Inquirer a magazine dedicated to debunking claims of the mal UFOs and psychic predictions We advocate ratio- nal thought based on reason and evidence and logic One Friday the 13th Nisbet's phone went dead after he was asked to go on the radio to cuss the illogic of fearing the date Still he holds firm Some say that's bad luck I say it's having a faulty he said Ailing Yeltsin skips meetings MOSCOW AP President Boris Yeltsin canceled meetings today after doctors said he was fering from an acute p i ra tory infection The lin press vice said Yeltsin 67 Boris Yeltsin had a sore throat and was being treated with antibiotics Yeltsin was staying at his country home outside Moscow and has not been hospitalized A brief statement said Yeltsin was experiencing discomfort in speaking It said the president had acute laryngotracheitis defined in medical dictionaries as an inflamed condition of the larynx and but his temperature was normal Yeltsin has suffered from heart troubles and other health lems in recent years raising con- cerns about his ability to govern The president has a cold and his voice is a bit chief of staff Valentin toid a Kremlin ing of TV officials today Reports of illness sent the Russian stock trading index down nearly 2 percent from Thursday's closing in ly trading but it quickly rebounded Briefs President launches initiative on quality of health-care WASHINGTON AP Saying hundreds of thousands of Americans die needlessly each year due to cal errors President Clinton is ing a new effort to improve health care quality including giving consumers better information about health plans Clinton's commission on quality in the health care industry finished its work Thursday and was presenting its report to the president today Clinton was endorsing its recommendations and moving immediately to ment some The president already has endorsed the consumer of rights and has been pushing Congress to write it into legislation He was ing for action again today as he ed the report from the commissioners despite their inability to agree that was needed In fact the commission took no tion on how the of rights should be implemented also rejecting calls to allow patients denied care the right to sue and recover damages in court South Korean leader frees prisoners but faces criticism SEOUL South Korea AP ident Kim himself once jailed for his beliefs freed a dozen political prisoners today in a sweeping amnesty that human rights groups as inadequate and deplorable We are very the nation's largest civil rights group said noting that the vast majority of the 5.5 million South Koreans affected by the amnesty were traffic offenders and petty criminals said Oh of the South Korean chapter of Amnesty International The government released only part of the long-term prisoners of con- science because they feared a lash from the country's conservative Oh said had urged the president to release some 500 inmates it describes as prisoners of conscience including 23 long-term political prisoners But only 12 political prisoners were released including six the Justice Ministry said were being freed because they are 70 years old or older All six had been serving life terms and human rights groups said all had been subjected to torture some for decades Lawyers complain of Jones finances fight to save case WASHINGTON AP Paula Jones attorneys try to keep alive her lawsuit against President Clinton the group paying her lawyers expenses is threatening to complain to authorities that her personal legal defense fund is deceiving contributors Jones lawyers were to file ments today in federal court in- Little Rock Ark as to why her her sexual harassment case should go to trial as scheduled May 27 Clinton's neys told the court last month the suit should be dismissed Jones lawyers are trying to show a pattern of women benefiting or ing harm on the job how they responded to Clinton's alleged The lawyers could provide to the court statements of women who gave depositions and could make public Clinton's tion in the case from Jan 17 The president has denied Jones claim that he asked her for oral sex in 1991 and was responsible for denying her proper raises and advancement as a result At the time Clinton was ernor of Arkansas and Jones was a clerk with the state's industrial agency The Rutherford Institute a law firm in Charlottesville Va is helping Jones lawyers with their legal case while raising money for the attorneys expenses But even as the institute works on her legal case it has threatened to go to the Internal Revenue Service and state attorneys general to argue the Paula Jones Legal Fund is misleading contributors according to an ual familiar with the dispute The legal fund is under the control of Jones and her husband and asks contributors to support her litigation expenses Neither Rutherford nor her law firm has received any money from the fund according to John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute Smear campaign set up in Clinton's defense The Baltimore Sun WASHINGTON House licans attacked the White House Thursday on the Monica Lewinsky matter for the first time in a formal setting charging that taxpayer ey had been used inappropriately to finance a smear campaign in defense of the president The Republicans complained the White House was using government lawyers to defend the president in a private legal matter the Paula Corbin Jones sexual misconduct case over they asserted White House officials are inappropriately ing Clinton's accusers during paid working hours a possibly illegal misappropriation of federal money Jim Kennedy a special adviser to the White House counsel denied the counsel's office had been used and he turned the tables on Congress Kennedy argued that an expanded counsel's office has become necessary because of the Congress tendency to dig into every allegation of against the White House GOP fund-raising dinner takes in million WASHINGTON AP Between forkfuls of veal tenderloin fruit chutney and multiple appeals for even larger GOP majorities in the next Congress the Republican Party netted lion from its annual fund-raising dinner Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said Republicans have just begun to fight for tax cuts and lower spending He said the party can deliver even more with congressional majorities large enough to overturn any of dent Clinton's vetoes Your commitment your help in the trenches your work in the field will add to a larger Republican majority in the the Mississippi Republican told the black-tie crowd of donors Thursday at the ington Hilton With Republicans in charge of the Senate and Republicans in charge of the House we have begun to change added House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia who stood before a replica of the Lincoln rial bathed in red white and blue light Clinton also attended a pair of Thursday Public interest groups blasted the events as examples of business and politics as usual by Democrats and Republicans Controversial study disputes the wisdom of diet LONDON AP diet may not be so healthy after all Defying a generation of health advice a new study concludes the less salt people eat the higher their risk pf untimely death The report does not necessarily mean Americans should suddenly lunge for the salt shaker but it does cast doubt on an item of standard dietary wisdom Some critics however said the study was flawed making its results unusable The study led by Dr Michael Alderman chairman of epidemiology at Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York and president of the American Society of Hypertension suggests the U.S government should consider suspending its tion that people restrict the amount of salt they eat It is possible that the harm of a sodium diet may outweigh its the study said Test can predict Alzheimer's with 90 percent accuracy WASHINGTON AP A new test is 90 percent accurate in identifying patients with early Alzheimer's the disease that often is difficult to diagnose researchers reported Thursday Other researchers cautioned that the test needs more study before it is ready for widespread use The screening exam uses four rate recall and thinking quizzes that are scored together to separate people with normal aging memory from those who might have serious lems said Paul Solomon of the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center memory clinic The results of a study of the Alzheimer's test given to 120 people are published this month in the Archives of Neurology backs tobacco Lott sets June 1 deadline WASHINGTON AP Hoping to prod Congress to move ahead on tobacco legislation President Clinton gave his blessing Thursday to a that would raise cigarette prices by a pack and set an annual cap on the industry's legal liability It is a good tough Clinton said in a speech to the National of Attorneys General I hope it gets wide support This legislation will save lives But Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott already has picked a different and set a June 1 deadline for a vote on it according to that sor Sen John McCain who chairs the Commerce Committee There's only gonna be one that goes to the floor of the Senate and that's what comes out of the Com- merce McCain told the same group Have no illusions otherwise
