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University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Thursday, Feb. 13, 1986
News Briefs
Beirut bomb kills 2,
injures at least 19
BEIRUT, Lebanon — A bomb exploded yesterday in a crowded east Beirut shopping district, killing two women and injuring at least 19 other people, after rival militias battled near President Amin Gemayel's mountain stronghold.
No one claimed responsibility for the bomb. It was the first in Christian east Beirut in 11 days.
MADISON, Wis. — Frank Herbert, 65, one of the nation's premier science fiction writers and author of the novel "Dune," died Tuesday of cancer.
'Dune' author dies
Police said hundreds of shopper were present when the bomb, which damaged cars and windows and knocked down walls, blew up in the entrance of a building where the offices of the pro-Gemayel Christian Phalange Party are located.
Herbert, a long-time resident of Port Townsend, Wash., died at the University of Wisconsin's University Hospital where he had received treatment since late last year.
Herbert was working on another "Dune" novel with his son at the time of his death.
Rail to cross channel
CANTERBURY, England — British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President François Mitterrand signed a milestone treaty yesterday for construction of a rail tunnel under the English Channel that would link their countries by 1993.
The estimated cost of the project is $3.3 billion in 1985 dollars. The actual cost is expected to double because of interest and inflation.
Napoleon dreamed of a similar tunnel project nearly two centuries ago.
The channel is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point.
From Kansan wires.
Reagan stumps in St. Louis
The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS — President Reagan said he recognized many farmers were suffering economically and declared yesterday that barriers against foreign trade were "the No.1 threat faced by American agriculture."
Opening an election-year crusade to keep the Senate under Republican control, Reagan, in a speech for delivery in this Midwest agricultural center, also railed against "big spenders and big taxes" and "our liberal friends."
"Instead of bigger government and higher taxes, we're looking for higher growth and more take-home pay," Reagan said, defending his
economic program. "Instead of welfare and handouts, we'd rather people have jobs and opportunity."
An audience of about 800 people responded warmly to Reagan but muffed the standard audience response to his frequently used lines: "Are you undertaxed?" and "Do you want your taxes raised?"
There was barely a ripple of response. Undaunted, Reagan said, "I hope they can hear you in Washington."
In a nearby park, several hundred farmers from four states protested administration farm policies.
"Their policies are killing us," said Tom Curl, president of the Illinois chapter of the American Agriculture Movement, as the crowd chanted a
Carlos Welty, another AAM farm activist, said Missouri was losing family farms at an alarming rate.
slogan comparing Reagan to a butcher who wanted only to "cut, cut, cut" spending for the needy.
"We're being driven out." Welty said. "We have to let the president know that all is not rosy here in the nation's heartland."
During his appearance, Reagan also denied anew what the Pentagon has paid exorbitant prices for items such as coffee pots and hammers.
He said U.S. citizens, in recent years, have heard "a drumbeat of propaganda that would picture the Defense Department as a four-star general sitting on a bag of money."
said the Pentagon "has instituted initiatives and improvements in management to the point that most of our weapon systems now are coming in ahead of schedule and under the original asking price."
Rejecting that portrayal, Reagan
En route to California for a  $3 \frac{1}{2} $ -day vacation at his mountaintop ranch, Reagan stopped here less than two hours to campaign for former Missouri Gov. Christopher Bond.
Bond, a popular two-term governor whose candidacy was promoted by the Republican Senatorial Committee, is seeking the GOP nomination for the Senate seat held by Thomas Eagleton, who is retiring after three terms.
Rescue of 2 men in tangled plane takes four hours
United Press International
ONTARIO, Calif. — Two men were rescued after four hours when their Cessna 172 plane became tangled in 220,000-volt power lines 90 feet above the ground early yesterday.
She said they told her that after the plane stopped rocking, the confused Plath crawled out on the wing.
Dean Plath, 58, of Tustin, and Clarence "Ed" Washburn, 66, of Whittier, were released from Ontario Community Hospital 35 miles from Los Angeles.
The two men refused to talk to reporters but gave hospital spokesman Diana Hanyak a statement.
Power company crews untangled the plane from the wires and lowered it to the ground yesterday morning.
Firefighter Ed Kramer of Chino said Washburn told him that he and Plath, both licensed pilots, were on an instrument rating flight late Tuesday night, unaware that something apparently was wrong with the glideslope indicator in their plane.
They were on an instrument approach to Ontario International Airport when the plane hit the power lines, skidding about 500 feet along their length before finally becoming ensnared. The plane jeerked to a halt a hundred feet short of a steel transmission tower and tipped over, dangling by one wheel and the propeller from two 220,000-volt power lines. A blue flash erupted and the power to the lines was cut.
NASA unsure whether seal on rocket caused explosion
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — NASA insisted yesterday that it is not yet convinced that a booster rocket caused the explosion of space shuttle Challenger.
The National Space and Aeronautics Administration said both the rocket's manufacturer and its own experts agreed to the launch in unusual subfreezing weather.
At the same time, NASA released internal documents that showed a history of concern with the "O-ring" seals where the four segments of the solid rocket booster are joined. In report after report, the huge rubber-like rings' elasticity and ability to contain gases were mentioned as critical items to be checked
Attention has been focused on the seals because films of Challenger's Jan. 28 liftoff show a plume of flame appearing to spurt from the right rocket booster toward the shuttle's main fuel tank. The ability of the seals to contain gas and flame is under close scrutiny.
"The cause is still an open issue." William R. Lucas, director of the NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, said in a news briefing. "We are investigating every part of the shuttle and not attempting to focus in too early."
NASA engineers discussed the weather by telephone with space shuttle contractors, including some at Morton Thiolok Inc., which manufactures the booster rockets in Utah.
The overnight low temperature was expected to be 24 degrees, said Lawrence B. Mulloy, director of the booster rocket program at Marshall, in Huntsville, Ala.
He said the discussion turned on whether the shuttle was ready for launch again in a short 24-hour turn around period.
After scrubbing a launch on Jan. 27 for other causes,
Later that evening there was another telephone conference, Mulloy said. Thiokol engineers had looked at NASA data on the possible effect low temperatures might have on O-ring performance.
Witnesses testifying Tuesday to the presidential commission investigating the accident said that despite the bitter freezing weather on the launch pad, they thought the internal temperature of the boosters' fuel was in the 50s.
Mulloy said NASA decided that if the gases made it past the primary seal, a secondary O-ring would contain them as it had done in the past, even under such temperature conditions.
Iacocca fired as head of statue renovation
United Press International
Although Hodel said there was absolutely no suspicion of any wrongdoing, he said he acted to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest in having Iacocca lead both bodies.
Iacocca, who successfully brought the No. 3 automaker back from the edge of bankruptcy, will remain as
WASHINGTON — Donald Hodel, interior secretary, fired Lee Iacocca yesterday as head of the commission to renovate the Statue of Liberty, saying the Chrysler Corp. chairman should not run both that panel and its fund-raising arm.
chairman of the fund-raising foundation.
In laocca's place as chairman of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Centennial Commission, Hodel appointed Armen Avedislan, a Chicago banker who has been a member of the commission since it was created in 1982.
U.S. jets fly close to Libya
United Press International
WASHINGTON— Planes from two U.S. aircraft carriers encountered more than 18 Libyan jets yesterday on the first day of flight operations showing U.S. determination to conduct exercises near Libya, officials said.
Libyan pilots displayed no hostile intent and no shots were fired, they said.
Most of the encounters were within visual range in which U.S. F-1 fighters came within 200 yards of Libya's Soviet-built fighters and jockeyed alongside before the Libyan jets peeled off and headed home, the U.S. officials said.
Libya's Soviet-built MIG-23 and MIG-25 fighters, IL-76 Candid transports and French-made Mirage F-1 fighters flew to within 100 miles of the U.S. battle force in the Mediterranean in some of the heaviest Libyan air activity confronting U.S. forces, the officials said.
They declined to pinpoint the precise number of Libyan aircraft but said there were more than 18.
The carriers Saratoga and Coral Sea, among about 20 U.S. ships, launched the second round of operations in 12 days in the Tripoli Flight Information Region on Tuesday night Eastern time, the officials said.
The operations were to run until tomorrow night, according to a Notice of Intent filed Sunday by the Sixth Fleet.
The U.S. flight maneuvers are intended to maintain U.S. pressure on the North African country and to demonstrate determination to operate in international waters and airspace.
Most of the U.S.Libyan aircraft encounters occurred near the northern boundary of the Flight Information Region, which is 310 miles north of where the Gulf of Sidra laps against the Libyan beach and southeast of Sicily, the officials said.
A Soviet Kresta-class cruiser and two Kashin-class destroyers from the Soviet's Northern Fleet in the Baltic entered the Mediterranean on Suns day and moved within the FIR north of the Gulf of Sidra, the officials said.
Four Soviet warships were in the FIR and the officials said they suspected the Soviets were relaying intelligence information about the U.S. naval operations to Libya.
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