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University Daily Kansan, September 28, 1982
News Briefs From United Press International
British doctors criticize testing on 'spare' embryos
LONDON — British doctors yesterday denounced Robert Edwards, the doctor who pioneered the test-tube method for fertilizing human eggs, for carrying out experiments on 14 to 15 "spare" human embryos, most of which died.
Edwards told a medical journalists' meeting Sunday that the experiments had been going on over a long period of time at his infertility clinic near Cambridge.
He did not, however, say how many of the 14 to 15 “spare” embryos were still alive. Medical sources said the embryos were usually a few days old.
The revelation unleashed a torrent of reaction from both doctors and anti-abortion groups, who denounced Edwards for using "barnyard" language.
Edwards obtains eggs from women at his infertility clinic and fertilizes them with male sperm. He inserts a fertilized egg into a woman so she can have a normal childbirth, but he retains other fertilized eggs as "spares" for experimentation.
He said Sunday that he felt "no hesitation" in conducting research on the "spares" to ensure that embryos to be implanted in the wombs of pregnant women can survive.
PCB protestors trv to block trucks
AFTON, N.C. — More than 100 demonstrators, including Rep. Walter Fauntroy, D-D.C., were arrested yesterday when they tried to stop trucks carrying dirt contaminated with the suspected cancer-causing chemical PCB to a rural landfill.
There now have been almost 400 arrests since the protests began nearly two weeks ago.
About 500 demonstrators led by Fauntroy and the Rev. Joseph Lowy, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, marched 2 l/2 miles to the Coley Springs Baptist Church on an access road that runs through the city in downtown in the road to block a truck loaded with the PCR-contaminated dirt.
Officials said Fauntoy, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, was arrested as he stood in front of the truck.
Former CIA agent must stand trial
WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled yesterday that renegade ex-CIA agent Edwin Wilson must stand trial Nov. 22 on charges of illegally exporting explosives and bomb-making devices to Libya.
U. S. District Court Judge John Pratt also ordered a second separate trial for Wilson, at a date still to be fixed, on charges he conspired with others to murder an Egyptian opponent of Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy.
According to federal prosecutors, Wilson was to have been paid $1 million for arranging the assassination, which never took place.
After listening to a day-long exchange of arguments, Pratt rejected defense contentions that Wilson had been illegally lured into the United States and ordered lawyers for both sides to file briefs within a week on a defense motion to move the trials from Washington. D.C.
U.N. talks ignore pipeline sanctions
UNITED NATIONS — The dispute between the United States and its West European allies over the Soviet natural gas pipeline is so serious "there was no point in discussing it" at the United Nations, a U.S. spokesman said yesterday.
The spokesman, John Hughes, said the United States and its European allies had finally deadlocked over President Reagan's request to lift the embargo.
He said Secretary of State George Shultz did not discuss the subject in separate sessions with West Germany State Secretary Bernd von Staden yesterday and French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson on Sunday.
"It was quite clear that the United States and France disagree and there was no point in discussing it in this forum," Hughes said. He said other European allies shared France's perception.
Father to return to Vietnam for kid
BANGKOK, Thailand — An American who fathered a child while working as a civilian in Vietnam ended his seven-year search for her and was granted permission yesterday to return to Vietnam to take his daughter home.
Gary Taneous of Camas, Wash., received a visa and permission to travel Thursday to Vietnam from authorities at Vietnam's embassy, ending a search for his daughter that has continued since the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975.
His 14-year-old daughter will be allowed to leave Vietnam for the United States along with about 10 other children whose fathers were American soldiers on duty in Vietnam and whose mothers were Vietnamese.
Meanwhile, four relatives of U.S. servicemen missing in Indochina reported progress with Communist officials in working toward a full return.
accounting of all estimate 2,300 soldiers who never returned to
the relatives spent two weeks in Laos and Vietnam.
MOSCOW — The mother of imprisoned dissident Anatoly Shcharamsky said yesterday that he had begun a potentially fatal hunger strike to protest his isolation. The United States said it deplored Soviet abuse of his rights.
Soviet prisoner begins hunger strike
In Washington, State Department spokesman Alan Romberg said, "We wish to emphasize how thoroughly we deplane the Soviet authorities wilful abuse of Mr. Shecharansky's rights, which has led to this desperate decision.
"We call on the Soviet authorities to reconsider their treatment of Mr. Shcharansky and to restore his ability to communicate with his friends and relatives."
Shcharansky, a computer scientist, was sentenced on July 14, 1978, to three years in prison and 10 years in labor camp on charges of spying and anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.
Welfare grandmother hits jackpot
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — A 49-year-old grandmother who had been on welfare for a year picked up a check for $19,538 yesterday. the woman said she was a volunteer at a child shelter in New York City.
"Gee, I just don't know what to do with it," said Alberta Kidd, 49, of Haddonfield, N.J., when officials of Harrab's Marina Hotel Casino handed her the check. "I guess the most important thing to do right now is to put it in the bank."
Kidd, who has six children ranging in age from 11 to 30 and eight grandchildren, pumped nine Susan B. Anthony dollars into a progressive slot machine about 4 a.m. Sunday at Harrah's before winning the jackpot.
The largest slot machine win ever recorded was $994,000 racked up at Caesar's Tahoe in Las Vegas, Nev., casino officials said.
Kidd, whose husband died of cancer in 1969, said she had been receiving welfare payments since last September
Carlin and Hardage tax strategies differ
By BRUCE SCHREINER
Staff Reporter
An aide to Gov. John Carlin yesterday said Republican Sam Hardage's proposal to increase the motor fuel tax by 4 cents was inadequate and unfair, but Hardage aide called the tax plan for repairing crumbling state highways.
The difference between the two major gubernatorial candidates' tax strategies intermixed late last week when Hartage, a long-time challenging Democrat in lv2, 2 election unleashed his blueprint for financing highway repairs and construction.
HARDAGE, who has criticized Carlin's proposed severance tax on oil and natural gas, promised to press for a ban on gasoline taxes. He faces fuel taxes to raise $5 million annually.
But Mike Swenson, Carlin's assistant press secretary, said Hardage's plan to improve highways should be ditched because it would not raise adequate
"It is not only an unfair tax, because it makes those pay who are least able to pay, but it is totally inadequate to face the needs in highways." Swenson said.
support his view that the gas tax increase would not be enough to finance
$WENSON referred to a...
Department of Transportation study to
The study composed a "bare bone" program, which said that a minimum of 50 million annually would be needed; to keep it adequately maintained, Swenson said.
HARDAGE'S TAX like plan, coupled with federal matching funds, would generate $190.7 million over three years for the 2014 Fall, Hardage's press secretary.
"For the gas tax proposal to be effective, it would need a 10-cent increase. I don't think people are willing to pay 18 cents for the gas tax," he said.
Day called the gas tax proposal a fair method for highway financing. But he said Carlin's severance tax was a big problem in current administration's spending policy.
Day said the $55 million siphoned annually from the gas tax would be sufficient to finance highway work under a Hardage administration."
"You need huge amounts of new revenue only if you continue to plan to spend like Carlin," Day said. "If you cut waste out of state spending, then the $55 million should more than make up for the shortages."
CARLIN'S scheme for funding high
It consists of a severance tax, which would raise $120 million annually from a 5-percent tax on oil and natural gas, a transfer of $80 million from collections of the motor vehicles sales tax in the city, an away fund, and federal matching funds.
ways and public education calls (for a three-tiered $435 million proposal over
Carlin resumed his crusade for his severance tax yesterday when he addressed the League of Kansas Municipalities in Topeka.
CARLIN SAID the state was at a crossroads, and it was more important than ever to pass the severance tax to pay for education and highway construction.
Hardage was scheduled to address league members today.
Swenson downplayed Carlin's lukewarm support for a slight gas tax increase earlier this year. He said Carlin considered using the gas tax as a compromising device to push his own gas tax tax back at the Legislature, but that the governor never supported a separate gas tax hike.
THE TWO aides also disagreed on proper ways to step up financing of higher education. Swenson turned to
the severance tax while Day stressed a reduction in state government waste
"The state budget would be freed up by the new funds (from the severance tax)." Swenson said "State aid to public education would be increased, so that went to public education could go to other areas, such as higher education."
Day said that Board of Regents institutions would benefit from the budget-trimming policies of a Hardage administration. He said that money saved from government waste could flow into higher education budgets.
IN ANALYZING the assault of each candidate against his opponent's tax plan during their Saturday debate in Utah, professors said both men were accurate.
Candidates plug utility bill-cutting ideas
Hardage has claimed that passage of a severance tax would send a "strong message" to other industries, discouraging them to expand in Kansas.
Ed Olson, professor of economics at Kansas State University, said a taxing system played a role in a state's ability to lure new industry, which has been the thrust of a Hardge assault on the severance tax.
BUT OLSON said other factors, such as the work force and the transportation network, exceeded the tax system in importance to an industry.
By JULIE HEABERLIN
Staff Reporter
As a bitter winter approaches, Kansans are taking a closer look at proposals of gubernatorial candidates to end the rapidly rising cost of utilities.
The controversial issue is divided between incumbent Democrat John Carlin, who opposes the federal government's deregulation of utility rates, and Republican Sam Hardage's belief in the free enterprise system.
THROUGHOUT the campaign, Carlin has been criticized by Republicans for breaking his promise during the campaign to lower utility rates once he was elected.
But Carlin maintains that 90 percent
of the blame for increased utility costs should be placed on federal government legislation that is allowing state companies to set their own prices.
"It's true, there's not a whole lot a state government can do to control prices," Darrell Day, press secretary for Hardage, said. "But it's misleading that Carlin claimed he could do something.
"THE ONLY way to get the price down is to increase surpluses of natural gas. And if you want to encourage more carbon emissions, put a tax on the oil and gas industry."
In agreement with the Reagan administration's decision to deregulate the oil industry,
izing Kansas' natural gas reservoirs to create surpluses, automatically lowering the price for the consumer, Day said.
But Mike Swenson, Carlin's assistant press secretary, said Kansas was already experiencing natural gas and energy costs while the prices continued to climb.
ACCORDING to Ed Peterson, of the Kansas Corporation Commission, studies have shown that Kansas does have excess reserves of natural gas.
The City Service Co., which supplies 60 to 70 percent of the gas in Kansas, has more gas under contract now that it is willing to sell, he said.
Also, according to a statement in the
system-wide rate case filed by the Federal Energy Corporation, under normal weather conditions some commercial airlines had a fuel of 170 to 183 cubic feet of natural gas.
ALTHOUGH this survey is nationwide, one of these companies serves Kansas, Peterson said.
Peterson said that drilling in the Hugoton fields in southwestern Kansas, where Hardage has proposed further exploration, had almost reached a standstill because its only-known layer of gas had been well explored.
Geologists have predicted there could be another, deeper layer of gas, but that prediction has not resulted in any immediate activity, he said.