University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
News Briefs OMB director named
WASHINGTON — The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee approved the nomination of James Miller for budget director yesterday and sent his name to the Senate for confirmation.
The committee approved the nomination unanimously.
Miller, now head of the Federal Trade Commission, was selected by President Reagan to replace his predecessor. He is Director Office of Management and Budget.
WASHINGTON — A recent series of East-West defections may have stemmed from the decision of a high-ranking member of the KGB to flee to the West, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.
Soviet defections up
Writer gets sentence
The newspaper reported that Vitaly Dzhurtchenko, 50, who held the rank of first counselor with the Soviet Foreign Ministry, defected to the West in August and has been undergoing debriefing by the CIA somewhere in the United States the past six weeks.
LOS ANGELES — A writer yesterday was held in contempt of court and sentenced to 10 days in jail for refusing to turn over a tape recording on which Cathy Evelyn Smith allegedly admits killing comedian John Belushi with a drug overdose.
Municipal Court Judge James Nelson found freelance writer Chris Van Ness in contempt of court and fined him $1,000 for refusing to answer numerous questions about his taped telephone interview with Smith made shortly after Belushi's death in June, 1982.
Show for Mexico set
LOS ANGELES -- A star-studded international telchon featuring singers Julio Iglesias and Placido Domingo will be broadcast this weekend to raise money for Mexico's earthquake victims, it was announced yesterday.
From staff and wire reports.
Nurse and lab worker get AIDS
The Associated Press
ATLANTA — For the first time since AIDS was discovered four years ago, federal health officials reported yesterday that health care workers — a nurse and a laboratory employee — had contracted the AIDS virus from working with patients and their blood.
Neither of the two health care workers has gone on to develop AIDS since they were infected, said Dr. Ken Castro of the Centers for Disease Control's AIDS task force.
Each of the infections apparently occurred when blood contaminated with the virus entered the worker's
bloodstream through a cut or puncture in the skin. CDRS scientist said
But doctors, nurses and other health care workers still are not thought to be in danger of getting the virus from normal contact with AIDS patients.
"The risk of transmission of (AIDS virus) infection to health care workers from patients is extremely low." the Atlanta-based CDC said.
Of the 1,750 health care workers examined by the CDC, 26 tested positive for the AIDS virus, but at least 23 of them were considered for other reasons at high risk for acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
AIDS, which has struck 13,402 people in the United States, killing 6.830
of them so far, strikes most often among homosexual men and abusers of injectable drugs.
But at least two — and possibly three — health care workers in this country are presumed to have been infected with AIDS virus on the job:
A female nurse who accidentally stuck herself with a needle in November 1983 and again in March 1984 while drawing blood from AIDS patients.
Friday, Sept. 27, 1985
A male part-time lab worker who cut his hand while processing blood from a leukemia patient in December 1983 and stuck himself with a needle in August 1984 while processing blood from several sources. It is not known whether
either blood sample was contaminated with AIDS virus, but the man reported no other risk factors for AIDS.
A third worker who showed signs of AIDS virus after submitting to an anonymous blood test. The CDC said it didn't know whether the worker infected for AIDS or whether the infection could be blamed on the worker's job.
Castro said yesterday's report must be put in perspective. He said that out of that 1,700 health care workers tested, only three had antibodies (indicating infection with AIDS virus). And Castro said CDC didn't know anything about one of the workers.
Senate sends toxic waste bill to House
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The Senate passed and sent to the House a $7.5 billion proposal yesterday to expand the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program despite complaints from environmental activists that the bill is inadequate.
The measure, approved 86-13, would continue the Superfund for five years past its scheduled expiration next Monday, giving the program nearly five times more money than the $1.6 billion set aside for the first five-year phase of operations.
"The basic bill is intact and strong," said Sen Robert Stafford, R-Vt., chairman of the Environ
ment and Public Works Committee, which drafted the legislation.
"the margin (of passage) is large enough that I think it should impress the White House with the support that's in the Senate," he added, speculating that President Reagan may sign the bill even though it would create a controversial new manufacturer to finance toxic waste cleanup.
House committees continue to review their vastly different $10 billion plan and are not likely to forward recommendations to the House before early October. Once the House acts, the two chambers must agree on a final version before the legislation can be sent to Reagan.
Several hours before the Senate vote, environmentalists lobbying for expansion of Superfund unloaded a truckload of petitions at the Capitol and complained that the Senate bill will provide a fund to pay for cleanup work.
"The Senate has failed to protect those of us who live in poisoned communities," said John O'Connor, coordinator of the National Campaign Against Toxic Hazards.
O'Connor and other environmentalists said that the bill lacked adequate financing and failed to set up a strict schedule for the Environmental Protection Agency to begin cleanup work at all the nearly 900 sites on the Superfund priority list.
Soviet arms proposal looked for by Reagan
United Press International
WASHINGTON — President Reagan will be disappointed if Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevarndze fails to offer a concrete proposal on arms control in talks today at the White House, a senior administration official said yesterday.
The official, involved in preparations for the meeting, said U.S. officials received no firm indication from the Soviets that Shevardnadze would present a widely reported proposal for a 40 percent cut in nuclear arsenals.
However, he said, the Soviets have hinted in their public statements at a readiness to get down to business in the arms negotiations that have been under way in Geneva, Switzerland, since March.
National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane told reporters, "While Shewardnade has offered no commitment or precision on the question of a new arms proposal, we surely would welcome a concrete proposal that would be put forward in a spirit of give and take."
The proposal that has emerged in leaks from Soviet sources would call for a 40 percent reduction in nuclear delivery systems and warheads, but at a price Reagan has so far refused to pay: restraints on his "Star Wars" system.
The three-hour White House session today -- Reagan's first face-to-face meeting with a member of the new Soviet leadership -- will lay the groundwork for his Nov. 19-20 summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
House retains price supports
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The House rejected administration-backed dairy and sugar measures yesterday in the first test of whether Congress would enact legislation that President Reagan has said he supports.
A 244-166 vote rejecting a gradual reduction in milk price supports was the greatest blow to Reagan. The president has said he cannot accept the alternative contained in the House bill.
That bill would assess all dairy farmers to pay for reduced production and raised price supports for some farmers.
law to pay dairy farmers for 18
law months to cut production, he told
lawmakers he would not accept a
rerun. Dairy production has rebounded sharply since that program ended in March.
Agriculture Secretary John Block said he was disappointed with the House's failure to approve the form of dairy and sugar measures.
In 1983, when Reagan signed a
"To perpetuate current policies that clearly failed is a tragedy," Block said.
Rep. George Brown, D-Calif., who also voted with the losing side, said, "This bill shifts $6 billion to $10 billion from consumers and taxpayers to the dairy farmers of this country."
Mexico City construction accelerated
United Press International
MEXICO CITY - President Miguel de la Madrid vowed yesterday to speed up the rebuilding of earthquake-ravaigned Mexico City as a group of politicians and architects charged that shoddy construction, official corruption and lax code enforcement contributed to the destruction.
The official death toll from the Sept. 19 and 20 earthquakes that struck the capital stood at 4,596.
The search for survivors continued, but rescue workers held out little hope that many more people could alive after being buried for eight days.
De la Madrid, who has been making daily tours of the hardest hit areas of the capital, said the disaster would force "a new direction" in construction in the city — a sign that he planned to move factories and offices away from the overcrowded area.
Several architects told United Press International that most of the buildings destroyed by the earthquakes were constructed in the last 25 years — many of them in the less affluent center of Mexico City where unstable subsoil was loose and shifting.
Buildings in wealthier areas of the city were for the most part unoccupied.
A group of survivors from the heavily damaged Tlatelelo housing complex, where an estimated 1,000 people were killed in the Sept. 19 earthquake, planned a march on the Legislative Assembly to protest shoddy construction work and corruption, which they thought contributed to the collapse of one 13-story building.
On one wall of the building, faded graffiti could still be seen yesterday, which read, "We are going to hold the authorities responsible if this building collapses."
The architects blamed the widespread destruction on several factors, which included:
A lack of standards for appraisers, who needed only to be members of the College of Architects to obtain a license.
- The use of office buildings as factories. A large number of destroyed garment district factories were in office buildings not constructed to support heavy machinery, particularly during an earthquake.