Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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.Court: Hand recounts allowed ■ Florida high court's ruling means Palm Beach, Broward counties can continue counting votes by hand by Ron Fournier Associated Press A1 Gore won a fight Thursday to quicken the pace of manual recounts in Florida as he struggled to trim Geoige W. Bush’s 300-vote lead before the Re publican secretary of state certifies the marathon White House race Saturday. GOP lawyers asked courts to stop the ^lounting and “the disintegration” of America’s presidential election system. The vice president laid the ground work to keep fighting for public opinion if he fails to pull ahead of the Texas gov ernor by Friday at midnight—a prospect senior advisers said was likely. “The choice really is whether the voters are going to decide this election by having every vote count or whether that process is going to be short-circuit ed without all the votes being examined,” Gore said in a radio interview. The Florida Supreme Court later handed Gore a modest victory, autho rizing officials in Palm Beach and rsrowaru counties iu recount uanots uy hand. The effort, wliich officials said will take about six days, had been stalled on order of Secretary of State Katherine Harris. The ruling did not say whether any votes found in the recounts can be added to Gore’s totals. Within minutes, Palm Beach elec tion officials decided to start recounting Thursday night. After two full days of counting in 86 of 609 precincts, Gore had gained 21 votes in Broward Coun ty on the state’s southeast coast. Bush supports the secretary of state’s weekend deadline and wants a declara tion of a Florida winner after the last overseas absentee ballots are due Friday at midnight. “Once these votes are counted, we will know the final result of Florida’s election and the nation’s election,” Bush campaign chairman Don Evans said. “Win or lose, this election will be over.” Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who thus far has been unable to deliver the state for his brother, agreed: “Saturday morning we’ll know who won the state.” Gore’s attorneys asked a state judge in Tallahassee to have hand recounts rolled into the election totals, even if the vote-counting isn’t finished by Friday night. They argued that Harris, a Bush supporter, acted arbitrarily when she re fused to update vote totals with the re sults of manual recounts after a Tuesday deadline. Bush looked to a federal appeals court in Atlanta to shut down the canvassing altogether, calling manual recounts in accurate and prone to political miscliief. Both sides said the case could be head ed to U.S. Supreme Court. “Eight days after Florida’s presi dential vote, the entire nation is wit nessing the disintegration of a process that was designed to elect America’s pres ident,” reads the Bush brief in the fed eral appeal. “The Florida manual recount process is being used to eliminate any possibility of an orderly, rational and fi nal end to the election. ” The federal court also agreed to con sider a related case filed by three Bush supporters from Brevard County. They claim their rights are being violated be cause their counties are not recanvass ing votes by hand. Broward County sheriff’s deputies took custody of 78 tiny bits of paper after Republicans demanded that the scraps be held as evidence of potential ballot tampering. The paper, from the holes in punchout ballots, was placed by police in an envelope marked, “Crime. Found Property.” Joked elections supervisor Jane Car roll, herself a Republican: “Let the chads fall as they may.” Later, a lawyer burst into the county’s hurricane emergency center and served subpoenas on startled coun ty election officials. “The nation is watch ing you, ” said Republican activist William Scherer, who filed a lawsuit on behalf of fellow attorney Steven Stoll. About 100 protesters, from groups including the NAACP and the Sierra Club, gathered at the West Palm Beach counting station, where the canvassing board was waiting for court guidance be fore recounting. The crowd chanted, “Hand count” and “Every vote counts.” Some held signs that read, “Honk . for dimples” — a reference to not-quite perforated ballots. The vice president began the day 300 votes behind Bush in Florida, with about 2,600 overseas absentee ballots to be counted Friday night. Gore has hoped the additional hand recounting would vault him ahead of the Texas governor in the race for the state’s 25 electoral votes and the White House. Both sides believe that a majority of the overseas ballots will go to Bush. Fur ther complicating Gore’s political situ ation, top advisers said Thursday the slow going recounts were unlikely to produce enough new votes to overtake Bush by Friday at midnight. The prospect of trailing Bush at the deadline intensified Gore’s fight in the courts of law and public opinion. A recent poll showed that seven out of 10 Americans said a winner should be declared once the overseas ballots are added to the totals. The Democratic strategy: speak ear ly and often to defend hand counting— and attack Harris. Vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman said voters must witness a “reasonable and just conclusion” to the election. Asked on an ABC radio show if the election was being stolen from him, Gore said, “I would discourage -use of that word because, again, however it comes out, we’re going to come behind the winner.” Aide to German chancellor quits in soccer club scandal by Tony Czuczka Associated Press BERLIN — Germany’s transportation minister quit Thursday under pressure from his own Social Democrats to dis tance the party from his role in alleged ly funneling illegal donations to a soccer club he ran. The accusations against Reinhard Klimmt threatened the credibility of a governing party that has relentlessly crit icized former Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the opposition Christian Democrats for a party financing scandal over the past vear. If Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Klimmt, who was fined $12,000 by a court this week, wanted to avoid be coming a political embarrassment. “And you have to respect tliat,” he told TV re porters. The party announced Klimmt’s de cision shortly after Volker Neumann, a Social Democratic lawmaker heading the Kohl investigation, urged him to step down. “We came to power claiming high er moral standards than we expect from the others,” he said in a radio inter view. “So it is up to us to draw the con sequences.” Schroeder appeared to stay on the sidelines as the Klimmt scandal grew, but he accepted his aide’s resignation after days of pressure from his party and —es •'jcially irksome for Schroeder—its ju nior coalition partner, the Greens. The government named Kurt Bodewig, a deputy transportation minister, to take over the ministry. Klimmt said he had hoped to hang on but tliat “my decision has made things easier for all involved” A court in the western city of Trier ordered the fine Monday, saying Klimmt helped fake sponsorship contracts that brought about $270,000 in illegal dona tions in the 1990s to the FC Saaibruecken soccer club in his home state of Saarland, near the French border. The donations were made by a com pany that runs hospitals in the state, where Klimmt has considerable political influ ence. Prosecutors said, however, that they found no evidence that Klimmt had used his political influence to shield the do nating company’s hospitals from state budget cuts. Klimmt, 58, initially accepted the fine in a deal to have prosecutors close the case. But he changed his mind Tuesday after Social Democratic leaders uiged him to fight for his reputation, leav ing open the possibility that he would face criminal charges. Social Democrats uiged him to step down from his post so that there wouldn’t be even an appearance of im propriety. The Christian Democrats accused Schroeder of dithering. “The whole back and forth was pret ty bad,” the party’s secretary-general, Laurenz Meyer, said on ZDF TV. “Schroeder saw this coming for weeks and should have been prepared.” In office only 11 months, Klimmt was the third Cabinet member to go since Schroeder and the Social Democrats won power in September 1998. The most prominent other departure was that of flamboyant fomier Finance Minister Os kar Lafontaine, a fellow Saarland politi cian and longtime friend of Klimmt who quit in an unrelated power struggle with the chancellor. Group ‘disappointed’ with Catholic bishops by Richard N. Ostling Associated Press WASHINGTON — The American Jewish Committee said it is “deeply disappointed” with a Wednesday pro nouncement on the Mideast peace process from America’s Roman Catholic bishops because it did not call upon the Palestinians to “fully respect the religious liberties of its citizens.” The Jewish group, long active in significant discussions with the Vati can and U.S. Catholicism, noted that Palestinians have desecrated Jew ish holy sites, including an ancient Jericho synagogue and the tomb of Joseph, and said some Muslim reli gious leaders had urged “attacks on Jews worldwide.” The Jewish group said “these ob scene words and deeds simply cannot be tolerated.” The bishops said the Mideast peace process must be revived, and for the first time endorsed “establishment of an internationally recognized Pales tinian state” as well as Israel’s right to exist “within secure borders.” A 1989 policy statement spoke only of a Palestinian “homeland.” Cardinal Bernard Law, who chaired the drafting committee, said the change was “rhetorical” and continued the substance of the previous declaration. The bishops also advocated full independence for Lebanon and “with drawal of foreign troops,” but the Jew ish committee noted they avoided mention of Syria by name. The bishops’ busy Wednesday ses sions also discussed doctrinal limits for church-related colleges and hos pitals. Other social statements de manded sweeping changes in The na tion’s criminal justice system and said the U.S. Supreme Court allowed vir tual infanticide in its June ruling on late-term abortions. The meeting’s most dramatic mo ment occurred when lay professor Daniel Finn of St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., told the bishops that their new policy to control who teaches what about reli gious subjects in Catholic colleges cre ates potential for the worst “open con flict between bishops and theologians” in a century. Under Vatican prodding, bish ops voted last year to require that all religion teachers receive an endorse ment from their local bishops. Hie hi erarchy is now uying to decide how to implement that. Finn said his colleagues nation wide believe the impending system will violate due process, cause legal snarls and undermine the credibility of Catholic academians. There’s con siderable confusion over how much power the bishops will exercise. Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, who chairs the bishops’ committee on the matter, said it’s strictly up to a col lege what to do with a teacher minus the mandate. He said a bishop can an nounce that a theologian lacks the mandate or inform the college but “he doesn’t have the right or the power to say, ’You get fired and you don’t.’” The hospital issue involves Catholic hospitals that merge with non-Catholic facilities and whether they must forbid abortions and other practices that violate church teach ings. The decision on hospital policy will be made next June, when the bish ops also hope to set final rules for en dorsing college theologians. On abortion, the bishops declared that the Supreme Court’s June deci sion to throw out Nebraska’s ban on so-called partial birth procedures means “even the killing of a child mostly bom alive is protected,” which “has brought our legal system to the brink of endorsing infanticide.” During discussion, Archbishop El den Curtiss of Omaha, Neb., cited the presidential election as evidence of the need for bishops to do a better job educating their flocks. “The last election, yet undecid ed, indicates a majority of Catholic people still do not make abortion the priority,” he said, an apparent refer ence to the many Catholics who vot ed for Vice President A1 Gore, an op ponent of a ban ‘on late-term abortions. Texas Gov. Geoige W. Bush support ed banning the procedure. Exit polls indicated Gore got a slight majority of the Catholic vote. A 38-page decree on crime reaf firmed the hierarchy’s opposition to the death penalty, though polls indi cate a majority of U.S. Catholics dis agree. It also said punishment should be used only to protect soci ety and rehabilitate criminals rather than expressing vengeance. LAPD convictions could be the first of many BY LINDA DEUTSCH Associated Press LOS ANGELES— Guilty verdicts (ptainst three officers in the city’s largest police corruption scandal could set the stage for further prosecutions. “Although these cases are difficult to prosecute, this demonstrates that we should not ignore them,” Police Chief Bernard Parks told reporters Wednesday after the officers were convicted of con spiracy and other crimes. “Our investi gations have not concluded.” It was the first trial resulting from the scandal in which officers from an elite gang-fighting unit of the Police De partment’s Rampart station are accused of framing innocent people and in some cases beating, robbing and shooting them. Sgts. Brian Liddy, 39, and Edward Ortiz, 44, and Officer Michael Buchanan, ^P, were found guilty of conspiracy to T!ostrucl justice and filing false police re ports. Officer Paul Harper, 33, was ac quitted of all chaiges. All four still face internal police hear ings on those and other chaiges, Parks said. Eighty cases have been brought within the department as a result of the corruption probe centered in the city’s Rampart neighborhood. Many remain to be heard. “There are cases we’re very inter ested in,” Parks said of prospects for criminal action, singling out an attempted murder charge against Officer Nino Dur den. Durden, who is awaiting trial, is accused of shooting and paralyzing a handcuffed suspect. He was a former partner of Rafael Perez, the disgraced ex-officer whose allegations started the scandal last fall. Perez turned informant in exchange for leniency after he was caught stealing $1 million worth of cocaine from a po lice evidence room. He was expected to be the top pros ecution witness until he demanded im munity from murder allegations — now recanted — made by an ex-lover. The jury was already deliberating when Sonya Flores said she made up the story about bodies buried in Tijuana, Mexico, be cause Perez had spumed her. Without Perez, prosecutors were forced to rely on gang members with credibility problems and police officers who said they knew little if anything about the chaiges. “The first case was a test case and the prosecution passed the test. But there’s no guarantee they will pass the test in the future,” said Laurie Leven son, a professor at Loyola Law School. City officials have estimated it may cost as much as $ 125 million to set tle lawsuits resulting from the scandal, which has already resulted in the dis missal of about 100 criminal cases taint ed by police testimony. Dozens of offi cers have quit or been fired or sus pended. Lawyers for the convicted officers said they would move for a new trial. They claimed their clients were pre judged as guilty before the trial began. “I was defending an officer that had already been found guilty in the minds of, not only these jurors, but the pub lic,” said Oritz’s lawyer, Barry Levin. Ortiz, 44, said he was baffled by the verdicts. “I still believe to this day that we are innocent and that we did our job to keep the citizens of L.A., keep the streets safe from all the gangs and all the crime that’s going on out there,” he said. The Superior Court jurors, who de liberated for 18 hours after a monthlong trial, said they were not influenced by the publicity swirling around the case. “There’s good cops and there’s bad cops,” jury foreman Victor Flores said. “A lot of us on the jury felt that they just didn't happen to cover themselves enough and they never thought it would come back to haunt them.” ‘There’s good cops and there’s bad cops. A lot of us on the jury felt that they just didn’t happen to cover themselves enough, and they never thought it would come back to haunt them.’ Victor Flores Jury Foreman News Briefs ■ Clintons say Good Morning, Vietnam BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (AP) — President Clinton was" flying to Hanoi Thursday night, bearing his promise of “a new page in our relations with Vietnam.” He is the third U.S. president to visit Vietnam, and the first since the fall of the South and reunification un der Communist rule. Lyndon B. John son went to Vietnam twice as presi dent and Richard M. Nixon once, in 1969. First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Hanoi ahead of her husband, flying in Thursday from Israel, where she delivered a eulogy at the funeral of Leah Rabin, widow of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. ■ Israeli rockets kill German doctor and injure 10 Palestinians JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli heli copters rocketed Wfest Bank taigets, including offices of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, be fore dawn Thursday, killing a German doctor and wounding 10 Palestinians in a further escalation in the worst Mideast fighting in decades. Also Thursday, an 11-year-old Palestinian boy died of injuries sus tained a day earlier in a clash with Is raeli troops in the Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll to 221 in seven weeks of confrontation. The vast majority of those killed have been Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak brushed off criticism at home that the army’s response to Palestinian shoot ing attacks was not tough enough. ■ Tidal wave hits Papua New Guinea PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP)—A huge earthquake shook the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of'Papua New Guinea Thursday, generating a tidal wave that crashed ashore and damaged a supermarket and other buildings. There were no immediate reports of injuries, but communications were cut with Rabaul and nearby Kokopo, the two towns in the area of northeast Papua New Guinea where the tsunami hit. Japan’s Meteorological Agency said the undersea quake registered 7.8 magnitude and the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 8.0. ■ Amtrak picks up speed with 150 mph Acela Express train WASHINGTON (AP) — Amtrak’s new 150 mph Acela Express bullet train represents America’s most seri ous effort yet to draw travelers back to the rails. The train enters regular passenger service Dec. 11 between Washington and Boston. If it succeeds as an alter native to crowded highways and con gested skies, the snub-nosed train could be a first step toward European style high-speed train travel elsewhere in the United States. If it fails, however, Acela Express could be the swan son? for Amtrak, the federally subsidized railway that is under orders from Congress to become financially self-sufficient by 2003. Am trak is relying on the service to earn $180 million a year. ■ Government unleashing flies to combat fire ants WASHINGTON (AP) — The South’s newest weapon against the dreaded fire ant sounds like something out of a sci-fi thriller: An insect whose larvae eat the heads off their prey. The Agriculture Department plans to elease hundreds of thousands of tin i ant-eating flies in the South and po-sibly in California, where the fire ar s have now spread. USD\ says the gnat-like phorid f) es, imported from Brazil, pose no k irm to anybody or anything other t‘ lan fire ants. “It is a self-sustaining ' locontrol,” said Richard Brenner, ' 'ho leads a USDA research team in . lorida.