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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, April 22, 1986
Nation/World
News Briefs
Ambassador unhurt after bomb explodes
LIMA, Peru — A car bomb set by a pro-Cuban rebel group acting on behalf of Libya blew up in front of the residence of U.S. Amnesty and Jordan early yesterday, causing some damage but no injuries.
Boat sinks, kills 300
Rescuers in Bangladesh searched yesterday for bodies in the cabins of a ferry that sank Sunday in a sudden halrstorm south of the capital of Dacca, killing as many as 300 people.
According to radio reports, police said a man and woman set off the bomb with an electric detonator and escaped. The bomb was the equivalent of 30 sticks of dynamite, police said.
Rescue officials in Bangladesh said they recovered about 175 bodies from the ferryboot M.V. Ekhias Star and said there were at least 70 more bodies trapped in the vessel's cabins.
Witnesses and survivors of the accident said the estimated death toll of 300 was far too low.
Texas has birthday
SAN JACINTO BAT TLEGROUND, Texas — Texans celebrated the 150th year of independence from Mexico yesterday with the ringing of church bells, fireworks displays in 10 cities, and in Brownwood, a parade of pickup trucks.
The two-day birthday bash began with the official state observance at San Jacinto Battleground State Park, east of Houston. At that site Texas troops led by Sam Houston defeated Mexican Gen. Lopez de Santa Anna on April 21, 1836.
Monarch turns 60
LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II went to the people by carriage and on foot yesterday to celebrate her 60th birthday.
Bands played "God Save the Queen," a cannon saiton boomed at the Tower of London and 6,000 children serenaded the monarch
Amid the festivities, police sharpshooters stood on roofs and bomb-sniffing dogs prowled sewers and garbage cans — the reality of a nation in the midst of an anti-terrorist alert.
From Kansan wires.
United Press International
No treasures found in Capone's hotel vault
CHICAGO — Months of preparation and speculation, and two hours of digging through brick and concrete yesterday proved only one thing — Al Capone's hidden treasures didn't exist.
The suspense was kept alive in a two-hour live telecast from the basement of the abandoned Lexington Hotel on South Michigan Avenue, with a station station WGN and NBC to television viewers across the country.
As workmen used bulldozers to knock down the outer wall and dynamite to tear down another wall
But when it was all over, Geralda Rivera, the former ABC reporter who narrated the event, had nothing to show viewers. Rivera apologized, saying tests showing there might be anything of value had been wrong
made of concrete, WGN showed taped interviews of people who knew Chicago's most infamous gangster
"It's always a disappointment when you don't find what you've been looking for," said a spokeswoman for the campaign. "I really thought we'd find gold."
reread though we were not sure. The spokesman said a decision whether to continue digging would be made today.
The show was a fund-raiser for an
Capone, the legendary "Scarface" who virtually ran Chicago during the prohibition era, and his henchmen moved into several of the middle floors of the old Lexington, when it was a luxury establishment, in 1928. He stayed there until 1932, when FBI agents obtained more Spartan lodgings for him at Alcatraz because of income tax evasion.
organization that bought the old hotel and that is trying to restore it.
Workmen had uncovered several hidden staircases in the hotel that were thought constructed for Capone's use, and a tunnel was found that runs across the street to the Metropole Hotel, where Capone had
lived before moving to the Lexington.
Many downtown Chicago sidewalks are hollow, laid over narrow subterranean caverns opening to the basements of the stores that line the streets. They are known as "vaulted sidewalks" and were shown on the walls of long, 8 foot wide buildings built sometime between 1927 and 1932 under the sidewalk of the Lexington. But Rivera said the test apparently had been wrong.
test applet Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times largely ignored the event, although the Sun-Times ran a long, barbed interview with Rivera yesterday concentrating on his fall from network grace.
But Chicago television station pulled out most, if not all, the stop interviewing everyone from men wf once worked as guards at Alcatraz 2 workmen who led the assault on the wall.
Speculation about what might have been sealed in the vault ranged from a board of cash and jewels to a Stu Bearcat luxury automotive or even the bones of Capone's machine gunned and icepicked enemies.
many thought there would be nothing but dirt behind the wall. But nonetheless, the Internal Revenue Service went as far as to take out a $100,000 lien on anything of Capone' that might have been found.
Court gives ruling in favor of papers
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court gave the news media a large victory yesterday by ruling that the First Amendment rights of newspapers engaged in public debate were more important than the rights of individuals.
The court, in a decision written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, ruled 5-4 in favor of the publishers of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who have been battling charges they labeled operators of a beer and beverage company with reports they had links to organized crime.
The decision was a huge victory for the media, which have been reeling from a flood of libel suits and multimillion-dollar judgments.
The main question in the case was who bears the burden of proof in libel suits by private figures.
Pennsylvania and a handful of states put the burden of proof on publishers, while some jurisdictions place the burden on the person bringing the suit. In most states there has been no legal decision either way.
The issue can be compared to criminal law, where those accused of a crime are considered innocent until proven guilty. Under Pennsylvania libel law, the plaintiff that was false and the newspaper bid to prove that it wasn't.
In overturning the Pennsylvania law, *O'Connor* said that in cases involving issues of public concern "where the scales are in such an uncertain balance, we believe that the Constitution requires us to tip
them in favor of protecting true speech."
In a sharp dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said, "In my opinion, deliberate malicious character protected by the First Amendment."
Richard Schmidt, general counsel of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, called the decision a reaffirmation of the right of free and robust debate. As far as putting the burden of proof on the plaintiff, he said, "That's where it should be."
Samuel Klein, attorney for Philadelphia Newspapers Inc, which publishes the Inquirer, called the ruling "absolutely just wonderful."
Joining O'Connor in the majority were Justices Harry Blackmun, William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Lewis Powell. Dissenting in addition to Stevens were Chief Justice Warmer Burger and Justices William Rehqunit and Byron White.
The label case began in May 1976, when a suit was filed by Maurice Hepps, principal stockholder of General Programming Inc., General, and a number of corporate entities that operated beer and beverage distributorships as franchisees of General.
The suit said the Inquirer published articles between May 1975 and May 1976 that linked them to underworld figures. The articles, according to documents filed by the newspaper, involved the "Trifty Beverage" chain, as the plaintiffs were known.
Nixon praises raid on Libya
United Press International
SAN FRANCISCO — Former President Richard Nixon yesterday praised last week's bombing raid on Libya and said any future U.S. response to Libyan terrorism should include a Naval blockade if U.S. allies refuse to join in economic sanctions.
Addressing 1,600 publishers during the 10th anniversary meeting of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, Nixon also endorsed President Reagan's re-election bid. He supported Nicaragua and advocated a gasoline tax if necessary to keep U.S. oil companies affloat.
The former president received a standing ovation at the end of his speech, and was warmly received by the publishers, including
Katharine Graham of the Washington Post, whose pursuit of the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s helped lead to his downfall.
"I fully support the president and his decision to bomb Libya," Nixon said of the April 15 attacks. "However, he now has exhausted the bombing option and must turn to the allies for help." Mr. Obama said no other option left except to blockade (Col. Moamary) Khadafy.
He said a blockade of the Bay of Sidra would topple Khadafy's government.
On Nicaragua, Nixon said giving $100 million in aid to the contras seeking to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government would be cheaper than sending in U.S. troops later.
troops later.
"Spending $100 million on the
contras is essential, but it is not enough." Nixon said. "We have to remember our experience from the Bay of Pigs, where we interfered (with Fidel Castro's government in Cuba) just enough to have interfered but not enough for victory.
"Our purpose in helping the contras of Nicaragua is not that they have a chance to topple the Sandistas, because they don't."
"However, a protracted fight between the contras and the Sandistas might force Nicaragua's current rulers to accept the tadadora formula for peace in Central America. That should be our real goal."
Nixon drew a laugh from the publishers when he responded to a question about what he would have done differently during Watergate.
Anti-nuclear protesting canceled
United Press International
PAHUTE MESA, Nev. — Anti-nuclear protesters canceled their plans yesterday to infiltrate the Nevada Test Site in hopes of stopping the third announced underground nuclear test of 1986.
Activists had to hastily redraw their demonstration plans because they were caught off-guard by the Department of Energy's announcement the weapons-related test would be conducted today.
Protesters hadn't expected the test until tomorrow.
They said they still would gather people at the test site entrance at daybreak but abandoned their plans
to sneak onto the classified government compound in the Nevada desert.
Jefferson, a Laurence Livermore National Laboratory weapons-related experiment, is buried in a vertical shaft 2,000 feet below the desert surface and is designed to have an explosive force of from 20 to 150 kilotons, equal to a maximum punch of 150,000 tons of TNT.
The government announced Sunday that the test, code, name- "Jeferson," will be detonated at 8:30 a.m. in Las Vegas, 140 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
pulitzer prize Jefferson will be the 649th announced nuclear test at the test site since the beginning of nuclear weapons
testing in the Nevada desert in January 1951.
Prior to the last underground nuclear test, "Mighty Ally," on April 10, more than 100 protesters were arrested on trespassing charges after the test site for crossing a cattle guard entrance at the test site entrance.
Protesters said they were responsible for delaying the test for two days. Department of Energy officials denied it.
Following the detonation, the Soviet Union announced it was ending an eight-month unilateral nuclear test moratorium and would resume testing.