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The ©amecock Congress fails to overturn repeal of estate tax bill by Curt Anderson Associated Press * WASHINGTON—With 13 Democrats switch ing sides, the Republican-led House failed Thurs day to override President Clinton’s veto of a bill to abolish inheritance taxes in a vote with political overtones likely to spill into the elec tion campaigns. “If the American people really want this tax relief, we need a Republican Congress with a Republican president who will sign it,” said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, framing the campaign issue for the GOP. By a 274-157 vote, the House fell 14 short of the necessary two-thirds margin to over ride the veto with 431 members voting. Fifty three Democrats voted with all but one Re publican for the override, compared with 65 Democrats who supported the legislation in June when it passed 279-136. ^ Clinton praised the vote, calling the re pealed bill “a huge tax cut for the most well off Americans” that threatened the nation’s eco nomic health and critical government programs. “If the congressional leadership is serious about estate tax relief for small businesses, fam ily farms, and principal residences of middle class families that have increased in value, they should work with me in a fiscally responsible manner as Democrats in Congress have pro posed,” Clinton said. But GOP sponsors said they would settle for nothing less than full repeal. “There is only one way to rid the code of this immoral, unfair and economically unsound tax, and that’s to eliminate it,” said Rep. Jen nifer Dunn, R-Wash. Even though a clear House majority favored repeal and polls show many Americans believe the tax is inherently unfair, Democrats said just as many people want Congress to focus on pay ing down public debt, improving education and creating a Medicare prescription drug benefit. Democrats also portrayed the 10-year, $105 billion bill as a giveaway to wealthy families — only about 2 percent of estates owe the tax each year — and only one part of a huge GOP tax cut that would consume too much of the pro jected budget surplus. “Never have so many spent so much time to give so much money to so very few,” said House Minority Whip David Bonior, D Mich. Republicans countered that the veto by Clin ton, and by extension Democratic presiden tial nominee A1 Gore, was another signal that Democrats want to spend the surplus on more federal government programs instead of re turning a portion to taxpayers. Republican nominee George W. Bush fa vors repealing the estate tax. “I say to the president: This veto does not mean that money is now available for Wash ington spending,” said House Speaker Dennis Hasten, R-Ill. “We will not use it to expand government.” Sponsors also took issue with the Democ ratic characterization of the estate tax as pri manly benefitting the rich, contending that it forces millions of middle-class people to spend thousands of dollars on insurance and estate planning and threatens jobs of people when busi nesses and farms are broken up to pay the tax. “The death tax has given purgatory a new meaning,” said Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, chair man of the House Ways and Means Commit tee. “Death as an event should not trigger a tax.” Clinton and Gore both called wavering De mocrats to shore up support for the veto, House aides said. One Democrat who switched his vote, Rep. Sam Farr of California, said he originally backed the repeal in hopes it would lead to a good-faith attempt at compromise with the White House. “You’re more interested in a political mes sage than you are in solving the problem,” Farr told Republicans on the House floor. In addition to Farr, these Democrats voted., for repeal in June but opted to sustain the pres ident’s veto and kill the bill this time: Califor nia’s Joe Baca, Anna Eshoo, Tom Lantos, and Zoe Lofgren; Colorado’s Mark Udall; Florida’s Allen Boyd and Peter Deutsch; Maryland’s Al bert Wynn; New Jersey’s William Pascrell; New York’s Mike McNulty and Nydia Velazquez, and Virginia’s Jim Moran. Next week, the House will decide whether to sustain the president’s veto of the 10-year, $292 billion marriage penalty tax cut. Like the estate tax repeal, 53 House De mocrats voted for the marriage penalty tax cut. That veto is also expected to be sustained. Congress has tried nine previous times to override a Clinton veto since Republicans took power in 1995. Four overrides have won House approval but only two vetoes—on budget line-item ve toes and securities litigation reform — were successfully overridden by both the House and Senate as required to enact the vetoed mea sures. Turkey stops homosexual tourists from entering historical site by Harmonie Toros Associated Press ISTANBUL, Turkey — Police in a Turkish resort banned a group of gay tourists, many from the United States, from visiting the ancient ruins of Eph esus, the tourists said Thursday. The 800 tourists, who also came from the Netherlands and Britain, ar rived in the Aegean port of Kusadasi ^ aboard the cruise liner Olympic Voy ager on Wednesday as part of a gay oriented seven-day tour with stops in Egypt, Israel and Greece. After authorizing most tourists to leave the port, local police blocked the last two buses, apparently after re alizing that the passengers were all ho mosexuals, passengers and crew mem bers said. Police also stopped several buses at Selcuk, some two miles from Eph esus, and ordered them back to the cruise liner. A dozen other buses man aged to enter the ancient city before the police blockade and visit Ephesus, whiach draws thousands of tourists each year. “All they said was ’No pass,”’ said Edward Timblyn of Houston, Texas, one of the passengers blocked by po lice. “I was disappointed, being stuck on the ship all day.” The mayor of Kusadasi boarded the boat Wednesday evening to apol ogize for the incident, Timblyn said. Although gay artists, singers and belly dancers are popular in Turkey, homosexuality is still taboo in the Mus lim nation and gays complain that they often face discrimination, especially by police. Police in Selcuk said they were carrying out orders of the inte rior minister, the daily Hurriyet re ported Thursday. But Mithat Duman li, a ministry spokesman, said he was not aware of any orders from the min-" istry. “We are not in a position to make judgments about peoples’ sexual pref erences,” Tourism Minister Erkan Mumcu was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency on Thursday. “They are in Istanbul now, and I think they will end their visit without meet ing any more problems.” Cody Hamilton, who was able to visit Ephesus, said he was relieved that authorities had apologized to his group. “The fact that this kind of igno rance is not tolerated by higher au thorities is very important,” said Hamil ton, from Durham, N.C. ^3 ©QQQa'k (PoajQa»»« Kristin Andreano Murray Austin Casey Banks % Marty Becker Hayden Bracknell Danielle Brower Chazzie Brunson Jess Burns Jeni Byars Laura Chisholm Ellen Christ Abey Coker Rebecca Fickin ^ % Kerri Forsberg Amanda Gaul din Mary Neil Hanks Laurel Harvey 9 Meg Hensley Kelly Kramer Emily Mabley Julia Mitchell Alison Mobley Erin O Hara Elizabeth Peterson Erin Shaw Susan Sherard Alison Sires Franje Slothouber Mardi Smith Elliot Swanson Kristen Tant Martha Woodward Megan Wright Jessica Wylie DELTA DELTA DELTA Study shows Earth getting hotter by Paul Recer Associated Press WASHINGTON — In a study that adds weight to global wanning theories, an analysis of freeze and thaw records for lakes and rivers in the northern hemisphere shows the Earth’s temperature has risen steeply over the last 150 years. Researchers report Friday in the journal Science that the annual freeze of 26 bodies of water in North America, Asia and Europe shifted about 8.7 days later over the last centu ry and a half, while the ice breakup dates have occurred about 9.8 days earlier. “The strength of this paper is the robust nature of direct human observations,” said John J. Magnuson, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and first author of the study. The results, he said, “are not calculations,” which are subject to bias and instrument error, but “direct human observations of a 150-year trend of ice freeze and thaw” that are difficult to refute. “It is clearly getting warmer in the northern hemisphere,” he said. “This is very strong evidence of a general warm ing from 1845 to 1995 in areas where there is ice cover.” Other researchers said the ice findings are consistent with recent instrumented temperature readings and tend to support the idea that the Earth is getting warmer. Some scientists have said readings taken by temperature gauges and by satellites are subject to interpretation errors. “This provides independent evidence that the warm ing we have seen over the 20th century is real,” said David R Easterling, chief scientist at the National Climatic Data Center, an archive center of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Temperature trends are a part of the ongoing research to determine if the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, is causing global warming. The theory is that carbon dioxide and other gases added to the atmosphere by indus try and transportation are trapping heat from the sun and causing the Earth to warm up. Some scientists have contended the warming is not re al or that it is part of a natural cycle unaffected by human actions. Magnuson said his study does not address the cause of the warming trend, but clearly shows it is occurring. The change in the ice-on and ice-off days found in the study corresponds to an air temperature warming of-about 3.24 degrees Fahrenheit over the 150-year period, he said. An average temperature rise of just a third of a degree is enough to change the icing and deicing dates by one day, the researchers said. The data was compiled from records kept at lakes or rivers in Canada, Finland, Switzerland, Siberia, Japan and at 14 sites in five northern U.S. states. Some of the records date back far longer than the 150 years studied. The oldest records are those kept in two churches on the shore of Lake Constance on the Swiss-German border. Since about the 9th century, there has been a tradition of carrying a Madonna figure from one church to the other on the day that the lake froze enough to walk across. A year later, fol lowing freeze up, the figure was returned to the alternate church. In Japan, ice records have been kept since 1443 at a shrine on Lake Suwa. Shinto religious leaders believe male and female deities separated by the lake are united when it freezes over. Lake and river ice records long have been important in Canada and the northern United States because the bodies of water often were used to transport people and commer cial goods. The U.S. lakes included in the study were Men dota, Monona and Geneva in Wisconsin; Detroit and Min netonka in Minnesota; Oneida in New York, and Moosehead in Maine. Scott Collins of the National Science Foundation, which funded the study, said it “is important because it humanizes the impacts of global environmental change by using a simple measurement that is relevant and meaningful to the public.” Bomb kills 6 in Pakistani city by Munir Ahmed Associated Press LAHORE, Parisian — A bomb ripped through a crowded market in the east ern Pakistani border city of Lahore dur ing the evening rush hour Thursday, killing six people and injuring at least 33, police said. The bomb exploded in Dharampu ra market in the eastern part of the city, about two miles from Pakistan’s bor der with India. No group has claimed responsibili ty for the explosion, the fourth in the city this year. Police said they made no immediate arrests. The crude homemade bomb, which weighed 4.4 pounds, damaged several shops, shattered glass and caused a stam pede. The bomb was tied to a motorbike, which was destroyed in the explosion, witnesses said. At least six people were critically injured, doctors at a state-run hospital said. Two of those killed were women. “I heard a deafening explosion while ■shopping,” said Ghulam Mustafa, 42, who sustained head injuries. “I don’t re member what happened next.” Another victim, Mohammed Nazeer, 18, who had bums on 30 percent of his body, saw flames leaping as the explo sion rocked the market. “I fell from my bicycle...I don’t where it is now,” he said. Outside a city hospital’s emeigency ward, men and women wailed and cried. Ali Imran, 22, said he carried his injured teen-age brother to the hospital in a taxi. “We both went out together. I stopped at a shop to buy milk, while my brother went ahead,” said a visibly shak en Imran. “Moments later I heard a bang...I found my brother among the victims. He has severe bum injuries. May God protect him.” Tire Deaths from page 4 Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., plans to hold hearings before his Senate Com merce Committee next week. “This is just the beginning of this investigative process,” said Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., who led the House hearing Wednesday. Tauzin said Thursday that “I think we’ve got it turned around.” “1 tliink we’ve got the agency (NHT SA) finally realizing it’s got to do a bet ter job not only collecting, but reading information,” Tauzin said on CBS’ “The Early Show.” “We’ve got the compa nies, I tliink, finally agreeing to provide information to a federal agency much earlier to set up ;;n early warning system to report foreifen recalls as they oc cur. Jacques Nasser, chief executive of Ford Motor Co., blamed the problem on what he called defective Firestone tires but promised changes in how Ford op erates, including notifying American of ficials when the car company makes any safety changes in its overseas markets. Ford has come under fire for begin ning a Firestone tire recall in 16 for eign countries, including several in the Persian Gulf, more than a year before the U.S. recall started “How in the world can corporate officials allow a danger to go forward in America while protecting the Saudis?” asked Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. Car companies are not required by law to notify federal officials of overseas safety recalls and Ford did not do so. But now, “we will advise U.S. safety au thorities of safety actions that are taken in overseas markets and vice versa,” Nass er pledged, rrom now on, wnen we know it, so will the world.” The chief executive of Bridge stone/Firestone Inc. issued an apology that didn’t say the company’s tires were defective and which brought up reminders of SUV rollover problems. Nasser later tried to transfer the blame back to Bricjgestone/Firestone and blamed it for withholding data. “Ford did not know that there was a defect with the recalled tires until we virtually pried the data from Firestone’s hands and analyzed it ourselves,” Nass er insisted. “It was only then, a few days before the recall was announced, that Ford engineers discovered conclusive evidence that the tires were defective.” Bridgestone/Firestone admitted it collected and used documents to deter mine financial losses on insurance claims but didn’t use the (lata to determine the safety of its tires.