Thursday, February 11, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 7
Nation/World
Some senators plan to acquit Clinton
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Three Republican senators declared yesterday that they would vote to acquit President Bill Clinton of both articles of impeachment — the clearest sign yet that the charges would fall far short of conviction.
Sens. James Jeffords of Vermont, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and John Chafee of Rhode Island — moderate lawmakers from the Northeast — were the first Republicans to announce opposition to both articles, perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
At the same time, a Democratic drive to censure Clinton sputtered under Republican opposition.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said that if GOP leaders thwart efforts to force a vote, she might simply draft a statement condemning the president's behavior and circulate it for senators to sign.
Jeffords said enough Republicans may vote against the articles of impeachment to keep the final roll calls today or tomorrow short of
even 61 votes, although he subsequently softened his prediction.
"The pressure is coming on to get a majority," he said.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said there had
been no attempt by the leadership to line up votes for conviction.
Lott, R-Miss., who issued a statement at mid afternoon, said that the evidence "shows that the president has committed perjury and obstructed justice. The only question left is, will the Senate vote to find him guilty of committing these high crimes."
Clinton: Conviction beginning to look unlikely
Only a constitutional two-thirds — 67 votes in the 100-member Senate — could convict and oust Clinton, the second president in history to be put on trial.
Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., has said that he will vote to convict Clinton for obstruction but to acquit perury.
Chafee stepped to the microphones in late afternoon and said that when it came to obstruction of justice, "circumstantial evidence in each of the cases is rebutted by direct evidence or by confusion."
With solid support among the Senate's 45 Democrats, the president has long been out of danger of conviction. Failure to deliver a simple majority for either article in the Senate, controlled by 55 Republicans, would be a stinging repudiation of the case that the GOP House voted to take to trial and its 13 prosecutor-congressmen argued to the senators.
Gorton said Tuesday night that he would vote for Clinton's conviction on the charge of obstruction of justice, but not on perjury.
With Clinton's acquittal assured, Democrats continued their campaign for a formal vote to censure the president after the trial. But Republican opposition seemed to be stiffening, and Specter said censure would violate the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers.
"There's been very little mention of censure" in the closed-door deliberations, said Sen. Bill Frist, R Tenn. "To me, the push for censure is losing steam."
Democratic leader Tom Daschle said he was hoping for at least a procedural vote before lawmakers adjourn for a week-long vacation — a roll call that would allow Democrats to go on record condemning the president's behavior while acquitting him at his trial.
With Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding, the Senate spent a second day behind closed doors, senators taking turns delivering their final statements. Lott told reporters at a midday break that 26 to 28 lawmakers had spoken at that point. He said he hoped a final vote still was possible by late today.
Rescuers search for avalanche survivors
At least 10 people already found dead at French ski resort
The Associated Press
CHAMONIX, France — Rescue workers used dogs and sensors yesterday in the search for survivors of avalanches that swallowed mountain chalets and killed at least 10 people near this popular ski resort.
A 12-year-old boy who spent hours trapped under the snow before being rescued early yesterday lost both his parents in one avalanche, police said. The boy, whose identity was not made public, was being treated for hypothermia in a hospital.
At least two people still were missing a day after the avalanches roared down a mountainside
between the Alpine villages of Le Tour and Montroc-le-Planet. The dead included four children, one a 4-year-old girl.
Twenty people were pulled from the snow alive, including two from the United States.
"I've seen many avalanches, but not the type that come into your house and blow it away," said Nathan Wallace, 28, from Mammoth Lakes, Calif., whose chalet was hit by one avalanche. "It was more like a California earthquake."
Wallace and his girlfriend, Alicia Boise, 21, were rescued two hours after the roof of their chalet collapsed.
“It’s as if there has been an earthquake, only everything is covered in snow,” said Blaise Agresti, commander of a mountain police brigade that worked through the night to find survivors. “The avalanche had incredible force. I was stuned.”
Two new avalanches struck the Chamonix area yesterday, officials
said, but no injuries or property damage was reported.
Tuesday's avalanches destroyed 17 chalets.
"The chalet next to ours disappeared—it was pushed across the road," said Jean-Marie Pavy, 49. "There were blocks of cement and gravel everywhere. It was the apocalypse."
A search also was underway yesterday for a 28-year-old British skier who disappeared in an avalanche Tuesday near the French Albs resort of Courchevel.
Snow continued to fall in other parts of Europe, forcing evacuations and stranding thousands in Switzerland. Austria and Germany.
Up to 16 inches of snow fell in parts of the Swiss Alps overnight and the danger of avalanches remained high, officials said.
In parts of the Austrian province of Tyrol, thousands remained trapped by record snowfall, with some unable to leave for the fifth day, and snow continued fall in
Avalanches in French Alps
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much of Austria.
In Eastern Europe, an avalanche in northwestern Romania blocked a major highway after hours of heavy snow, but no injuries were reported, the Romanian Interior Ministry said.
Ski runs were closed in the French Alps resort, and hundreds of skiers were trying to leave the town in buses and cars to find open slopes.
Federal judge orders pilots back to work
American Airlines pilots stage sickout strand thousands
The Associated Press
DALLAS — A federal judge yesterday ordered American Airlines' pilots to end a slickout that has forced the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights.
U. S. District Judge Joe Kendall told the pilots to return to work today and warned they could be held in contempt if they don't stop calling in sick en masse.
The sickout was prompted by a dispute about when pilots from newly acquired Reno Air will be upgraded to the pay scale of American's regular pilots.
The strife at the nation's second-largest airline has resulted in travel delays for more than 200,000 passengers since Saturday.
In issuing a temporary restraining order barring the pilots from calling in sick en masse, the judge chided both sides and told them to resume negotiating.
"It's silly for us to even be here. It's like killing a gnat with a sledgehammer," he said. "If you would look up bad labor relations in the dictionary, you would have an American Airlines logo beside it."
A representative for American's parent company, AMR Corp., said the company believes the pilots will abide by the judge's order.
"We have never questioned a pilot that has called in sick. We just hope they will all get better soon," Chris Chiames said.
The president of the pilots' union was in a meeting and not immediately available for comment.
During a court hearing today, AMR attorney Dee Kelly said the airline is losing money every day of the sickout. American pilots are barred by federal law
from striking about the issue of the Reno Air nilots' nav.
Talks about the Reno Air issue stalled last Friday. The next day, many pilots began calling in sick and refusing to fly voluntary overtime.
The pilots union said the abnormally high number of sick calls was a rational response to the stress the labor dispute creates for individual pilots, and noted that safety regulations require pilots to stay home if they consider themselves under too much stress to fly.
In court papers, American Airlines argued that the pilot union's advice to members to stay home was a sign the union was, in effect, pushing an illegal sickout.
The number of cancellations has escalated each day. On Tuesday, more than 800, or 36 percent of its 2,250 daily flights, were canceled, delaying 73,000 travelers. Wednesday, it was estimated that 40 percent of the flights, or roughly 900, had been canceled.
"Today we have 2,077 pilots on the sick row," airline representative John Hotard said.
American's 9,400 pilots, represented by the Allied Pilots Association, said AMR should add Reno Air pilots to its roster more quickly, thereby moving all employees up on its pay scale.
AMR said that it will take about 12 to 18 months to move pilots into their new positions and that the union's demand for pay raises would cost as much as $50 million this year.
Across the nation, would-be passengers spent hours dozing on luggage carts or slumped in their chairs. From Miami to San Francisco, blinking blue letters on airport monitors read "Canceled" beside a long list of destinations.
"If this were to happen in Argentina, they would burn the airport," said Beatriz Chichizola, a native of Buenos Aires who waited for hours Tuesday at the Los Angeles airport.
Congressmen introduce legislation to protect stranded air travelers
Bill would force airlines to pay when passengers are delayed
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Transportation Committee wants airlines to pay if they keep passengers stranded in airplanes, as happened earlier this year in the snowbound Midwest.
Rep. Bud Shuster, R-Pa., included the requirement in multifaceted passenger rights legislation he filed today.
Under terms of the bill, airlines that held passengers for two hours or more would have to repay them twice the value of their ticket. Passengers held for three hours or more would receive three times the value of their ticket, and the same trend would hold true for passengers held four hours or more.
"I can't walk through the chamber or go to the House gym without members coming up to me and telling me the horror stories that they have had, that their constituents have had, in dealing with the airlines," Shuster said.
The bill filing comes five days after two senators introduced similar legislation to define passenger
rights. The bill by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ron Woyen. D-Ore., would require airlines to give passengers 48 hours to cancel tickets that now are nonrefundable.
Much of the legislation stems from complaints after snowstorms stranded travelers in Detroit during the New Year's holiday. In some cases, passengers were stuck on planes for eight hours or more within view of the terminal because the planes either could not take off or could not pull into a gate.
The legislation also would require airlines to explain why flights are delayed.
Shuster said the decision by American Airlines pilots to call in sick and refuse all overtime this week, creating travel delays and cancellations for thousands of travelers, shows why such legislation is needed. The pilots and American's management are clashing about compensation for pilots after the airline's recent acquisition of Reno Air.
Airlines have said the regulations are unnecessary and misplaced. They complain that they cannot be held accountable for bad weather or the unavailability of gates.
"I say a pox on both their houses. I think they don't give a damn about the traveling public," Shuster said. "I think that you need to do whatever it takes to get their attention."
Navy will destroy ship to avoid oil spill
COOBS BAY, Ore. — Navy explosives experts boarded a grounded cargo ship yesterday in a race to set fire to the vessel before an approaching storm is able to break it up and cause a disastrous oil spill.
Authorities decided to burn the ship rather than try to save it, concluding it was the only way to spare Oregon beaches from the heavy, tar-like bunker fuel remaining inside the New Carissa.
"We are significantly concernée the ship will not stay together," said Coast Guard Capt. Mike Hall. "We're between a rock and a hard spot. If we don't do something now, we would have to stand before you and tell you why we let 400,000 gallons of oil spill on our beaches."
Already, cracks in the hull of the 639-foot ship have leaked oil across miles of coastline.
The Associated Press
The decision to set fire to the ship was made after it became clear that salvage crews could not budge the vessel free before a storm was
"It's the best show in town," said Danny Martin, a longshoreman who was part of a growing crowd that gathered on the shoreline bluffs to watch.
Plans called for removing huge cargo hatches on the deck and using small explosive charges to crack open the fuel tanks, allowing the fuel to flow into the cargo holds and burn more freely.
Authorities said such burns have been conducted safely in Alaska and other parts of the world.
It could take a couple of days to burn off the fuel. Afterward, the charred steel hull will be hauled to the beach, cut up and removed.
The ship, owned by a Japanese company and registered in Panama with a crew of 23 Filipinos, ran aground last Thursday morning 150 yards offshore.
Pounding surf opened up cracks in the ship's steel hull Monday, and
expected to slam the coast late last night with 70-mph winds.
Explosives experts were flown by helicopter to the deck of the ship to prepare it for an afternoon burning.
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three of the ship's five fuel tanks, containing 140,000 gallons, ruptured, causing streaking oil along six miles of beach.
The ship is aground in an area known as the Lebert Hole, considered a prime crab-fishing area. It is near an area where the Western snow plover, a threatened shorebird, lives.
About 200 people mobilized along the southern Oregon Coast to clean up the oil. Several birds have been coated with fuel.
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