University of South Carolina Libraries
_wi re Bill deals with drunk drivers WASHINGTON (AP) - The House, determined to get drunk drivers off the nation's nighways, is considering a bill aimed at offering sates incentive grants if they pass tough alcohol-traffic laws. The legislation would establish a three-year, $125-million grant program to encourage states to set up comprehensive, coordinated drunk driver control programs. After the bill was approved by the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, Rep. Michael Barnes, D-Md., said it would set aside $25 million in fiscal 1983 from the Highway Trust Fund, and $50 million the following two years. Barnes said the grants would be used as "seed money" to reward states which take recommended steps toward setting up programs to deter drunk driving and to remove the bottlenecks in the enforcement and adjudication systems. The Senate passed similar legislation last May, but provided for only $75 million over the next two years to states which enact model drunk driving laws. An aide to Barnes said House and Senate members were working toward a compromise that would include the $125 million grants over the next three years. The House is hoping to pass the measure today. The Senate was then expected to adopt the House measure before Congress recesses later this week for the campaign season. The model law, which Congress seeks to get states to enact, includes provisions that a driver have his license automatically suspended for 90 days for failing a chemical sobriety test. Repeat offenders would have their licenses suspended for one year. An individual whose license had been suspended for drunk driving would have his car impounded for 90 days if he was caught driving. Dark fur indicates long winter LANCASTER, PA. (AP) - The fur of the woolly-bear caterpillars is the dar kest Martha Krone has seen in 40 years, leading her to predict a long, harsh winter ahead. "I have never seen so many solid black ones in my life," Mrs. Krone, 84, said Saturday after surveying the coloring of a handful of caterpillars brought to her by a friend. Mrs. Krone, who gauges her prediction by the darkness of the caterpillars' coloring, said, "Usually the red ones are sort of strawberry blond, but there aren't any (of that color) this year. "I would advise everyone to stock up on long underwear and antifreeze and plan to dig deep for cash to pay heating bills," she said. "Every indication is that it's going to be a long, hard winter." Mrs. Krone is the widow of newspaperman Harold B. Krone, who made the caterpillar predictions in the pages of the Lancaster New Era for 40 years until his death last year. Mrs. Krone has continued the forecasts. PTL Club settles out of court CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -The PTL Club of Hock Hill, S.C., has agreed to pay $23,000 to settle a lawsuit stemming from a swimming instructor's conviction of lewdly touching an 11year-old girl, a court clerk confirmed Monday. "There was a settlement approved last week for $23,000 against Heritage Village," a deputy clerk of Mecklenburg Superior Court said. The clerk said the Charlotte girl's mother accepted the outof-court settlement from the evangelistic TV network on Thursdav. The settlement, approved by Mecklenburg Superior Judge Claude Sitten, came after a brief hearing during which the mother testified the girl had been fondled during a free swimming lesson at Heritage Village's day camp at Heritage USA, about three miles north of Fort Mill. The assault allegedly took place Aug. 5, 1981, according to testimony. The instructor asked the girl if she would be returning to camp the next day. When she said "no," the mother testified he offered her a free swimming lesson. During the lesson, the instructor took the eirl to water over her head and fondled her, the mother said. Randy McFarlane, 30, was found guilty by a six-man, six woman jury in December of lewdly touching a minor. He was sentenced to six years in the state prison. McFarlane told the judge he had been sentenced in 1973 tc 25 years in South Dakota for statutory rape and voluntary manslaughter. He served six years before having his parole, in effect until May 1983, transferred to North Carolina. PTL, sued under its corporate name Heritage Village Church and Missionary Fellowship Inc., also paid the mother $2,000 for the girl's medical expenses. No description of in juries were given in court. _ _ _ i _ _ riinutj wiiiidin owns volcano BOULDEIt, COLO. ' AP) - Besides being second in line tc the British throne, Prioce William also is master of 1,(XX acres of land ? on Mars. David Aguilar, director of the Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado, sent the royal infant a certificate foi the land on Olympus Mons, a Martian volcano the size ol Texas. Noting that the land is no ordinary piece of real estate, he said the son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana "is nc ordinary baby." Since March, Aguilar has been raising money for the planetarium by selling such 1,000-acre tracts for $20 apiece and says he has raised $20,000 so far. "It piques people's imaginations," he said of the sales promotion. "Deep down, people want to believe there is life on Mars." inA? : ~ ~~ ~i uav. tooay RH film: "Lost Horizon" starring Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt, 2:30, 7 and 9:30 p.m., FREE. Theatre: "Birthday Party," 8 p.m., Longstreet Theatre. For tickets, call 2551 or 2552. ] U Good Neight (AP) -South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. employees are extending a helping hand to utility customers who find themselves in dire straits. Food, clothing, medical and drug bills, and other emergency needs have been paid for by the Good Neighbor Fund, according to SCE&G spokesman Roger DuBose. But the good neighbors ? SCE&G employees who contribute to the fund ? don't help out with power or gas bills. "We don't pay utility bills, because we felt that would seem self-serving," said Joe Good, "but we have contributed to a variety of other legitimate emergency needs." Good's employer has come under fire for its record $119-million gas, electric and bus rate hike request. Good, the driving force behind the fund, says it has helped 111 families in the SCE&G service area. The fund, Good explained, "is there for the people who, through no fault of their own, have fallen through the cracks. We try to give them one-shot ^ <>' ^HjBijft^MiiS^|jp^ ^ ^ - _ i~k^fpX _-;f-;;^ Attendance policy enfi Army personnel were a part of the A Armv will lend the tank to the universi Program enfo (AP) - About 270 divorced oarents in been forced.because of federal legislate total of nearly $129,000 in delinquent chil according to a state welfare officer. "The program was absolutely a suc< McKeown, a director with the Departme child support enforcement. "It's a very collecting past-due child support." McKeown was referring to a law pa August 1981. It allowed states to sub i Revenue Service names of parents who 1 child support payments. > If the IRS found names on the list tha r the refund check was held up and the st , crack at the refund, up to the amount ow During the program's first year, DJ ; amount of almost $129,000 from about 27 a list of 500 who owed ahnnt $1 mill program admisitration director. Each "hit" DSS made on delinquent j around $17 while the average amount i he said. The program requires that the child r i Chinese are'ta > PKKIMfl < AP) - Snuipf PrcciHont I^eonid I. Brezhnev has made another f overture to China, and diplomatic sources here say he will send a high? level delegation to Peking next month ) in efforts to reopen normalization talks. ; But the Chinese still are "talking , about talking" ? neither confirming nor denying that the Soviet delegation > is coming ? and observers do not ! expect a quick thaw in the chilly China-Soviet relationship. a iic iwu i^uiiiuiuiiisi powers, once firm allies, split in the early 1960s over increasingly bitter ideological differences. China also accused the Soviets of trying to dominate the Peking government and the world Communist movement,- and was further embittered when the Soviets abruptly withdrew nearly all aid. In April 1979, China announced it mr Fund hel( help, direct them to appropriate programs and help them over the hurdle. "With Reaganomics, the federal welfare programs are drying up and the ball is put back in the local court, < to churches and other service agencies. We are trying to do our part to help on the local level," he said. The fund isn't administered by the company, but by a board of 12 SCE&G employees, DuBose said. Good heads SCE&G's Customer Assistance Department. The department, which counsels lowincome customers on paying utility bills, finds most of those helped by the fund, according to DuBose. The idea for the fund was born when the department investigated the nonpayment of a utility bill by a young Columbia woman. "We discovered she was living in a mobile home with her eight-year-old daughter, who was suffering from advanced multiple sclerosis," Good recalled. "The mother had exhausted all federal and state welfare sources. Jill l|fflplll||flfc[i tPJIIfll ip^lfpilllii - irced? ctivities Fair Tuesday in front of Russell H ity to help enforce the new attendance poli irroc nhilrl cnn 'I UUU URRRRU UMjj South Carolina have Families with Dei an ,to come up with a parent be at least d support payments, least $150 and be ui The remainder i :ess," said Larry J. payments wasn't Tit of Social Services' McKeownsaid. cost-effective way of Some of the pare within the prograi ssed by Congress in late payments afte mit to t.hf? Infprnal Mnnov haven't been making reimburse the sta support given thef t were due a refund, Under tue progi ate was allowed first what was going tc ed. parent was allowei 5S intercepted a net the state attorney | 3 parents taken from All states partic ion, said McKeown, year, McKeown s required by federa ronfc? fVia ^^ 41? >U1 blllO VUOl lilt O L? IJCCdU&C U1 LI1C ntercepted was $478, mitted only 500 n parents who are b eceive federal Aid to percent of parents Iking about tal would let the China-Soviet peace and friendship treaty expire. China suspended normalization talks after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1079. The two countries also have long squaooied over their border, with China claiming about 40,000 square miles of Soviet territory. The last talks on this subject were held in Peking in June 1978, and China has not answered a Soviet diplomatic note asking that the discussions be reopened. So far, the Soviet Union clearly has been the suitor. Brezhnev said in March that the Soviet Union is "ready to discuss the question of possible measures to strengthen mutual trust in the area of the Soviet-Chinese frontier." In a nationally televised ceremony Sunday in Baku, capital of Soviet is needy Her husband had left her, and she couldn't work because the skilled nursing care of her child, who was on a respirator, would cost more than she could earn." Good and other SCE&G workers donated money to cover medical and other expenses, allowing the mother to stay home and care for her child. Since then, employees have pledged almost $50,000 to help families in need, according to DuBose. The fund has helped: -an unemployed 33-year-old mother who, along with her children, had been physically abused by her husband and was living with the children without food, running water or electricity in an abandoned home overrun bv rats. The fund crnt h<?r an apartment and refered her to social agencies for further assistance. -pay funeral expenses for the husband of a Ridgeway woman who was sick and unable to work. BMMPI^Sc8?rt^::::;t*:::::;T-^^>:;::.;.;::.;.::>;.;;;:;;.. Dk.t. ku CBiMV I IIPTrn ouse. It is unknown whether the icy. port payments pendent Children, that the delinquent three months behind in payments, owe at ider court order to pay the support. of the estimated $1 million in delinquent collected for a number of reasons, mts had joint tax returns, which don't fall n's jurisdiction, and others had made up r being notified by the IRS, he said. i from the program has been used to ite and federal governments for welfare amily. 'am, the IUS sent the parent a notice of > happen to the refund and the delinquent d to appeal the interception of the check to general's office through McKeown's office, ipated in the program to some degree this aid. Next year, full participation will be 1 law. short time involved, South Carolina sub ames of the "potential 12,000 to 13,000" ehind in child support payments. About 90 affected are men, he said. king' to Soviets Azerbaijan, Brezhnev said his government "would deem it very important to achieve normalization, a gradual improving of relations" with China. But the Foreign Ministry here received Brezhnev's new overture without comment. Thf? snwfh was reported by the official news agency Xinhua in a dispatch from Moscow, also without comment. Foreign diplomatic observers in Moscow said the speech was a scenesetter for talks next month, the first high level diplomatic contact between China and the Soviet Union since normalization talks broke off. Although relations are expected to improve slowly, observers dismiss any serious rapprochement between the Communist powers, which have diplomatic relations but no intimate party-to-party contact. I