Wednesdav
Wednesday November 11,1998
Nation/World
7A
High winds rip through Missouri
Residents complain of extensive damage from storm system
The Associated Press
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Dale Sumpter pointed his cane to where his bedroom wall used to be, then stopped as the sound of broken glass cracked beneath his feet.
"I've lived in Missouri for seventy-two years, and I've never been in anything like this, or seen anything like this," Sumpter, said yesterday just hours after heavy winds ripped through the southeast part of the city, destroying more than 20 homes and damaging about 100 others.
Wearing two different shoes
scrounged from what was left of
his home, Sumpter, 72, was thankful both he and his wife Dorothy survived.
"The good Lord was with us," said Sumpter, who had lived in the home for two years. "He definitely was."
Force winds up to 50 mph swept through the area early Monday, and warning sirens sounded at about 2 a.m. yesterday. The destruction was concentrated in the Southridge subdivision near Highway 63 but no serious injuries were reported and there were no fatalities.
Late yesterday, Gov. Mel Carnahan, declared a state of emergency for Boone County, the city of Columbia and other areas affected by the storms.
Chris Sifford, Carnahan's representative, said it was too early to tell if the state would seek federal
assistance.
residents of the subdivision and many students at the University of Missouri-Columbia walked down streets as school textbooks, posters and other college-life debris littered the area.
Kerri Cole, a marketing sophomore at the university, narrowly escaped injury along with two housemates when a neighbor's shed hit the outside of her bedroom wall.
"There was this loud noise like an engine," she said. "My wall and bed started shaking like it was a horror movie. It seems like an angel was watching over us."
Officials said there was no damage on the University of Missouri campus.
At a news conference at the New Haven Elementary School a mile northeast of the damaged area,
city officials Tuesday were still trying to assess the damage as city crews tried to restore power and water service.
State emergency officials were on the scene.
"The real good news is that there were no fatalities," said Ray Beck, Columbia City Manager. "Our interest is to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible."
About 100 of the 500 homes in the Southridge subdivision were damaged and 20 were completely destroyed, officials said. Surrounding counties reported only a few downed trees and power lines.
Southridge residents began returning to their homes at about 9 a.m. yesterday.
Forecasters said the wind accompanied a storm system that swept across Kansas and Missouri late Monday and early yesterday.
Netanyahu to ratify Mideast peace accord
The Associated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced yesterday he would convene his Cabinet to ratify the Mideast peace accord signed in Washington last month, indicating he is now satisfied with Palestinian security assurances.
Netanyahu has postponed the Cabinet debate three times, saying he needed more clarifications from the Palestinians about their campaign against Islamic militants.
Last Friday, the ministers had just begun their second day of debate when the militant Islamic Jihad group carried out a suicide-bombing in Jerusalem's market, killing the two bombers and
wounding 21 Israelis.
In response, Netanyahu broke off the Cabinet meeting and said he would not reconvene the ministers until the Palestinian Authority outlined how it would prevent attacks against Israelis.
Yesterday he said new guarantees led him to believe that Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority would take practical steps against Islamic militants.
The Cabinet was scheduled to meet in Jerusalem today.
Both the United States and the Palestinians welcomed the announcement.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had urged Netanyahu to stick to the original 12-week timetable of the accord under which
israel is to withdraw from 13 perc
cent of the West Bank by the end of
January, in exchange for a Palestinian anti-terror campaign.
If the Cabinet ratifies the agreement, Israel might still be able to meet its first commitment on Nov. 16, an initial troop pullback from
2 percent of the West Bank.
While agreeing to place the accord before his Cabinet,
Netanyahu: trusts
PLA to take action
against militants.
Netanyahu suggested he would stop the troop withdrawal if the Palestinians did not meet an Israeli demand concerning the procedure for revoking clauses of the PLO founding charter.
The Wye agreement, signed in Washington on Oct. 23, said the Palestine National Council and other Palestinian organizations will meet in mid-December to "reaffirm" a January letter by Abbafat to President Clinton that lists the PLO charter clauses considered annulled.
Israel insists the agreement requires the PNC to take a formal vote, while the Palestinians say only approval of the letter by acclamation is required.
Clinton faces more probes for election campaign finance
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—His legal problems surging anew, President Clinton has been questioned by Justice Department investigators looking into whether his 1996 re-election campaign got an illegal boost from Democratic Party issue
The president was questioned Monday as part of a preliminary, 9-day investigation into the possible violation of federal campaign finance laws. He was interviewed for
90 minutes in the White House study by two FBI agents and two Justice Department lawyers. His personal attorneys, David Kendall and Nicole Seligman, also were present.
Clinton was questioned in campaign finance case.
Vice President Al Gore is scheduled to be interviewed by Justice lawyers and the FBI later this week on the same topic, according to a lawyer familiar with the case, who requested anonymity.
Clinton and Gore deny any
wrongdoing
The Washington Post quoted unidentified sources familiar with Clinton's testimony as saying the president essentially reiterated his earlier defense that the ads were legal but that in any case prosecutors must show an intent to break the law.
If lawyers advised him that the ads were legal, according to Clinton's reasoning, there could be no criminal intent, the newspaper said.
Clinton was not put under oath, and the session was not videotaped, officials said. However, it is a felony to make false statements to federal investigators, whether sworn or not.
The 90-day inquiry will determine whether an independent counsel should be appointed to conduct a full investigation. Attorney General Janet Reno has until Dec. 7 to decide whether to ask a special three-judge panel to name a special prosecutor.
The campaign inquiry focuses on whether Clinton and the White House coordinated with the Democratic Party to assist his re-election through the issue advocacy ads the party was running in 1995 and 1996. If so, that could have violated the federal spending limits to which Clinton agreed when he accepted taxpayer financing of his campaign.
States drive toward cross-country highway tolling
The Associated Press
The end of the free ride may be just past the horizon, though.
WASHINGTON — The marvel of the interstate highway system is not just that it runs through all 50 states, but that most of it is free. A driver can angle from Key West, Fla., up to Bellingham, Wash., and easily avoid any tollgates.
A provision in the nation's new $203 billion transportation spending law lets up to three states add tolls on their interstates. Advocates say the test program is the only way for some cash-strapped states to maintain their overburdened roads. They also believe a more widespread use of tolls may
help reduce future highway congestion.
But truckers and other heavy road-users say interstate tolls amount to double taxation. It is gas taxes, they note, that paid for President Eisenhower's grand vision of a cost-free, coast-to-coast, concrete grid speeding commerce.
They plan to fight any request for tolls. They will make Arkansas, whose highway commission has already voted to apply for a toll permit, "ground zero" in their campaign.
Pennsylvania Mo. Tom Ridge has also proposed tolls for Interstate 80, a major east-west artery, and Florida officials have mentioned tolls as a way to relieve congestion on Interstate 4 outside Orlando.
"We want to kill this in Arkansas and stop it from spreading to other states," said Walter B. McCormick Jr., president of the American Trucking Associations. Joining the group are the Arkansas Motor Carriers, the American Highway Users Alliance, Americans for Tax Reform and the National Association of Truck Stop Operators.
One of the new law's supporters, the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, said tolls were a rational way to finance road construction and repairs.
"They are popular because the person who uses the road pays for it right then
and there," said Neil Schuster, the group's executive director. "This is just a recognition that tolls are another way to build, maintain and finance our roads."
The 45,000-mile interstate system was begun in 1956 and has been fueled to completion with gas-tax revenues. The state tax varies, but the federal portion is 18.4 cents per gallon.
States receiving interstate highway funds have had to agree to keep the roads they build toll-free. Some pre-existing toll roads, including the New Jersey Turnpike, were incorporated into the federal system in the belief they would eventually become free, but that has not happened.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon stepped up the movement of warships to the Persian Gulf yesterday and the Clinton administration swept aside the idea of negotiations with Iraq about United Nations weapons inspections.
Defense Secretary William Cohen warned that if Saddam Hussein continues to refuse the U.N. inspections, he risks strikes that would cause a significant degradation of his military strength.
U.S. refuses to negotiate inspections with Iraq
President Clinton met for 90 minutes with his top national security advisers, reviewing military and diplomatic options. He also worked the phones, conferring with leaders in Britain and Israel.
State Department representative James P. Rubin said
there were limits to diplomacy. "What is not needed, and there is no plan for it, is negotiations with Saddam Hussein. We have no doubt many governments are conveying that message," Rubin said.
"This cannot go on indefinitely," he said. "Saddam Hussein is not an abstract threat." With inspections suspended, "he will be able to reconstitute his weapons in a matter of months, not years."
The latest standoff began after Iraq announced Oct. 31 it was halting cooperation with the U.N. Special Commission, which is responsible for overseeing the destruction of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles.
Iraq must get rid of its weapons of mass destruction before the Security Council will lift the sanctions that
were imposed on its sale of oil following the Gulf War.
Clinton called British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the situation in Iraq, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said.
Cohen, speaking at a Pentagon photo session with Singapore's defense minister, Tony Tan, said that he had decided to hasten the movement of the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier and a group of Marine warships into the region in case the United States chooses military action.
At present, there are 23,500 U.S. troops, 23 ships and 173 aircraft in the Gulf region. Eight of the ships are loaded with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, believed to be a top choice for hitting potential Iraqi targets, should a strike be ordered.
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