Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Candidates spar as primary nears by Ron Fournier Associated Press Manchester, N.H. — A1 Gore and fellow De mocrats jumped “into bed with special interests” during the 1996 fund-raising scandal, rival Bill Bradley said Sunday, as he struggled with questions about his own health two days before New Hampshire’s pri mary. Sen. John McCain claimed, “There’s only one man who is fully prepared” to be commander in-chief, and he said it’s not Geoige W. Bush. With polls showing Gore’s once-commanding lead narrowing, the vice president struggled to deal with Bradley’s sudden eagerness to attack. A polit ical flame-thrower himself, Gore accused Bradley of impugning his integrity and “stepping down... to the level of personal vilification.” Bush, the two-term Texas governor and nation al GOP front-runner, said his executive office ex perience would make for a better president. “I’m not of the Wishington scene. I’m not a committee chairman,” Bush said, digging at Senate Commerce Committee chairman McCain. “I’m the guy who can beat A1 Gore,” McCain replied, as the GOP and Democratic campaigns appeared headed for close finishes. McCain holds a slight edge or is tied with Bush in polls here, af ter leading the Texan for eight weeks. Gore’s edge over Bradley is slightly wider, but that contest also could be close Tuesday. Bradley, McCain, Bush and Republican Alan Keyes made the round of Sunday talk shows while the seven major-party White House hopefuls plowed toward Tuesday’s vote with rallies and news con ferences. Running a distant third in Republican polling here, millionaire publisher Steve Forbes kept his eye on Bush. After the Texan told “Fox News Sun day” that he would cut taxes “hopefully in the first term,” Forbes questioned Bush’s commit ment to the issue. “I don’t want to say, ’I told you so’ but having led with a timid tax cut and now hedging about whether he can even get that, I think this is part of the waffling and equivocating that people are tired of,” Forbes said in an interview. Keyes, the conservative firebrand, picked up the endorsement of David Schippers, chief GOP inves tigator for President Clinton’s impeachment trial. He said the race between Bradley and Gore is a choice between “the devil or Beelzebub.” Fellow conservative Gary Bauer, struggling to keep his candidacy alive, maintained a light sched ule that included a Super Bowl party. Recognizing that football, not politics, held voters’ interests Sun day, most of the candidates ended their day in front of the TV. Lugging cheese popcorn and pretzels through a shopping center parking lot, Manchester voter Dennis Ekerson dismissed a political question with a laugh. “Gary Bauer? Does he play for Tennessee or Los Angeles,” the registered independent said. Bradley, a former basketball star, has been slow to reveal details about his irregular heartbeat condition and acknowledged Sunday that he has briefly undergone anesthesia three times for treat ment since December 1996. He told ABC “it would be appropriate” to in voke the 25th Amendment and tum power over to his vice president if he underwent the same treat ment as president. Though the candidate and his doctors say the condition is simply a medical nuisance, it could become a political problem if voters worry about his health. •* Bradley lost badly to Gore in the Iowa caucus Primary seemgem ‘Unless we [Democrats] clean up our own house, Republicans will clean it up for us this fall.' . Bill Bradley Democratic presidential candidate McCain gaining on Bush in South Carolina polls Associated Press New York - Republican presidential candidate John McCain continues to gain ground, but still trails Texas Gov. George W.Bush in South Carolina, a new poll shows. The Time/CNN poll released Sunday indicates 52 percent of South Carolina Republicans favor Bush while 32 percent favqr McCain. In a November Time/CNN poll, Bush had a 62 percent to 15 per cent lead over the Arizona senator. In a Palmetto Poll conducted by Clemson University’s Strom Thurmond Institute earlier this month, 51 percent of the potential voters questioned said they would vote for Bush, and 29 per cent said they would vote for McCain. The latest Time/CNN poll, conducted by Yankelovich Partners on Jan. 26 and 27, interviewed 531 likely Republican pri mary voters in South Carolina. It has a margin of error of 4 percentage points. The state’s Republican primary is Feb. 19. The poll also indicates that of four major issues in the news, education at 82 percent is the issue that most voters rank as “very important” when deciding on a candidate. Others include moral values (79 per cent), taxes (73 percent) and abortion (51 percent). Nearly three-quarters of those polled are against big tax cuts, favoring instead a smaller tax cut and a larger amount of money for Social Security and the na tional debt. On the Confederate flag issue, 56 per cent of those polled thought the flag should be removed from the State house dome, but 82 percent said it is an issue that should be decided by the state. More of those polled said Bush would do a better job with taxes and education than McCain. But more said McCain would do a better job on campaign fi nance reform and thought McCain “understands world affairs” better than Bush. by Scott Sonner Associated Press Elko, Nev. — Hundreds of disgrun tled Westerners paraded through town with 10,000shovels Saturday to protest federal environmental policy and lend support to residents feuding with the US. Forest Service over a washed-out road. The residents want to rebuild a dirt real along the Jartudge River in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, but the Forest Sendee has fought their ef forts, saying die erosion would lurm the river’s bull trout population. “Wfehave learned we must stand to gether, shoulder to shoulder, to defeat those who would destroy our way of life and the Wfest as we know it,” State As semblyman John Carpenter, a Republi can from Elko, said during Saturday’s rally. Two hundred horse-drawn wagons, makeshift floats, ATVs, motorcycles, snowmobiles and pickup trucks loaded with tons of shovels donated from across the West paraded down Elko's main street to a rally at the countycourthouse. More than 3,000 people lined the streets with shovels and American flags, and children waved plastic, sandbox shovels. Several protesters carried signs that read: “Stop Clinton's War on die \Wst” ‘it has taken on a life of its own,” said O.Q. “Chris” Johnson, a local busi nessman who lielped organize the Jar bidge Shovel Brigade Parade. “It’s bigger than the Fourth of July. ” Most of the shovels were delivered in a caravan from Montana, where log gers and null workers long have been at odds with the Forest Service. “Somehow, sending a shovel seems symbolic. Maybe it will make a differ ence,” said Cary Hegrebeig of Helena, Mont, executive vice president of the Montana Wood Products Association. “Most people understand shovels area symbol of work. That’s something we have in common — we want to work,” he said. Elko County Commissioner Mike Nannini, who helped organize the pa rade, said shovels arrived by mail from as far away as Rhode Island and Mary land “It’s just a grassroots deaL It’s not just the West anymore. These people are saying ‘No more,”’ he said The Jarbidge River, in a remote canyon near the Idaho border, is home of the southernmost population of bull trout in North America. The disputed road, a 15 mile dirt stretch, connects to a trailhead for a , wilderness path and provides vehicle access to fishing and camping along the river. White officers on trial for killing unarmed immigrant by Tom Hays Associated Press New York—No one disputes the math. Police Officer Sean Carroll squeezed off 16 rounds. So did Edward McMellon. Kenneth Boss emptied five bullets from his pistol and Richard Murphy four, for a total of 41. Nineteen bullets tore through the body of Amadou Diallo within seconds, turning the 5-foot-by-8-foot vestibule of his Bronx apartment building into a dingy death trap. They pierced his heart, spinal cord, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys and in testines. The officers had feared for their lives, they said, believing Diallo to be an armed criminal. They learned too late that he was a 22-year-old West African immi grant carrying only a pager and wallet. Nearly a year later — racial politics and a mother’s plaintive cries providing a backdrop — a jury must decide whether the shooting by the four white officers was murder. Jury selection is set to begin Monday in Albany, N.Y., 140 miles north of Di allo’s neighborhood, because an appeals court agreed with defense attorneys who argued that pretrial publicity and protests would make it impossible to find im partial jurors in New York City. Last week, state Supreme Court Jus tice Joseph Teresi ruled the trial, which is expected to last more than a month, could be televised—partly to ensure ac cess to city residents. His ruling is un likely to quell anger over the change of venue. Civil rights activists have vowed to go to Albany to rally behind the Diallo family. They have urged federal author ities to monitor the case they say sym bolizes widespread police brutality against minorities. More than 1,200 people have been arrested for their roles in demon strations. Kadiatou Diallo, who arrived from her native Guinea five days after the shoot ing, mourned openly for her eldest child. “Amadou’s blood will feed the bat tle for justice for everyone,” she said last year after the officers were indicted on charges of second-degree murder. Carroll, 36; McMellon, 27; Boss,.28; and Murphy, 27, all pleaded innocent. But prosecutors allege they demonstrat ed a “depraved indifference to human life” by unleashing a barrage of bullets on a defenseless man. The firepower stunned and polarized the city: “In Cold Blood — Police kill unarmed man in hail of 41 bullets,” read an early headline. A New Yorker maga zine cover portrayed a police officer at a shooting gallery with the sign “41 shots 10 cents. ” The American Civil Liberties Union ran a full-page newspaper ad dotted with 41 bullet holes. “If a man was put in front of a firing squad, he would not expect to be shot at 41 times,” the Rev. A1 Sharpton said at the time. The defendants’ decision not to tes tify before a grand jury left no option ex cept murder chaiges canying a maximum sentence of life in prison, said Bronx Dis trict Attorney Robert Johnson. • “Without (their) explanation, what we have is four people driving up to a lo cation, pulling out their guns and killing an individual,” he said. Defense attorneys maintain the offi cers thought Diallo, who sold videotapes on the streets, was reaching for a gun when they told him to freeze. The offi cers have indicated they will testify in their own defense. 'The case is “about whether you give police officers the benefit of the doubt,” said McMellon’s attorney, Stephen Wbith. “You either somehow believe a bunch of cops thought, ’What the hell, we’ll shoot this guy for no good reason,’ or you realize that they thought they were in danger of being shot at, and took proper action.” The defendants belonged to a rov ing Street Crime Unit credited with great ly reducing shootings in New York by ar resting aimed suspects. Three had been involved in previous shootings, one fa tal. All were deemed justified. On the night of Diallo’s death, each officer was dressed in street clothes and bulletproof vest and armed with a 16-shot semiau tomatic pistol. Need Some Cash? 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Removal of North Korea from the U.S. list is necessary to create “favorable conditions and atmosphere for the Wash ington high-level talks before anything else,” the North’s foreign news outlet, KCNA, quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying. The two issues will be high on the agenda when less senior officials from the two countries resume talks in New York in late February, KCNA quoted the spokesman as saying. The sides met in Berlin from Jam 22-28 but Med to reach agreements. A high-level North Korean official’s visit to Washington would be seen as a sign of the country’s practical readiness to improve ties with the United States. Such a visit would reciprocate former Defense Secretary William Perry’s trip to Pyongyang last May in his capacity as presidential emissary. North Korea sent shock waves through Asia by testing a multistage rocket that sailed over Japan and landed in the Pa cific in the summer of 1998. The United States agreed to open talks on improving relations after the communist country halted plans last summer to test-fire an other missile which experts said could reach Hawaii and Alaska. ■ Artist creates Hillary voodoo doll New York (AP) — Last month a New York artist created a Mayor Rudolph Giu liani voodoo doll. Now David Freeman’s giving equal time to foes of Hillary Rodham Clin ton. “I’m a guy who has a great sense of fair play,” Freeman said Thursday. He said the Hillary doll was “neces sary for the people who support Mayor Giuliani” in his expected Senate race against Mrs. Clinton. Freeman’s 9-inch-tall cloth dolls come with a starter set of five pins and in structions: “Stick it to him” and “Stick it to her.” “Hillary has a beautiful smile,” Free man said. “She looks so chipper and love ly. Some say I made her look too good.” The Rudy doll, he added, features “a little scowl” and his trademark comb over. I ■ Government reverses position on workers’ illnesses WASHINGTON (AP) — Reversing a po sition held for decades, the government has concluded for the first time that many workers who built America’s nuclear weapons likely became ill because of ex posure to radiation or toxic chemicals, officials said Saturday. The findings, based on a review of dozens of studies and raw medical data covering an estimated 600,000 workers at 14 nuclear weapons sites, including Sa vannah River in South Carolina, could lead to compensation to the families of some of the workers. Many were unaware that they were being exposed to such health risks. Want to Earn Extra Cash? Be a Soccer Referee Earn Extra Work on Campus Cash $$$ c . , Set your own hours Meetings will be held Tuesday, February 2 in room 134 COME TO THE BLATT PE CENTER & COMPLETE AN APPLICATION, OR CALL 777-4593 FOR MORE INFORMATION * f «