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Show DIGEST' TRIAL TO BEGIN FOR UTAH WOMAN ACCUSED OF KILLING SENIOR CITIZEN: The trial for a Salina woman accused of beating an elderly man to death is to begin today in Richfield. Cindy Johnson, 34, has pleaded not guilty to fust degree felony murder in the killing of Dean V. Nielsen, 70, at his apartment in Salina. lf convicted, she could face a life sentence. Nielsen was sitting in a recliner chair in his apartment in Salina when he was killed. Officers said he was beaten to death with a blunt instrument and had been struck at least eight times. The defendant had Jived in the same apartment complex as Nielsen and had frequently visited him, officers said. They believed the motive for the slaying was t0 obtain prescription drugs from the victim. ~ CLINTON BREAKS HOLIDAY TO ATTEND FUND-RAISER, ASSESS FLOOD DAMAGE: President Clinton took a brief pause from his family's Utah ski vacation Saturday to honor a political fundraising commitment in California and greet ston11 victims, issuing a prayer for "tranquil weather." From Beverly Hills, he also decried . . Washington as "a place where too many Bill Cbnton people take themselves too seriously, where people profess to be profoundly religious but actually worship power." Before heading to the glitzy fund-raiser, Clinton met at Los Angeles lntemational Airport with local leaders, rescue heroes and victims of the storms that have pounded California. RESIDENTS GO HOME BUT 30,000-GALLON TANK CONTINUES TO BURN: Firelighters partially drained the town of Walworth, Wis. water supply yesterday as they worked to cool a burning 30,000-gallon propane tank and keep neighboring tanks from igniting. Hundreds of residents were allowed to return home as the blaze started dying down and was declared under control. The propane burst into flame Saturday when a car ran through a ditch and a fence and slammed into the tank. Authorities had not yet been able to get close enough to the burned wreckage of the car yesterday to determine if anyone was in it. WHITE HOUSE SAYS STARR SHOULD END HIS INVESTIGATION: A White House aide said yesterday it's time for Kenneth Starr to end his investigation of President Clinton. "This is not about seeking the truth. T his is a partisan political pursuit of the president, and it's time for Ken Starr to start wrapping up pieces of his investigation and get to the bottom of it," said White House Rahm adviser Rahm Emanuel on CBS' "Face the Emanuel Nation." Sen. Patrick Leahy took the attack a step further, saying that Starr was out to oust the president. FLASH FLOODS IN SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN KILL 30, INJURE 300: Flash floods that roared through southern Afghanistan killed at least 30 people and injured 300, Afghan officials and aid workers said yesterday. Relentless rains over the past week caused severe flooding in several poor farming villages in the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Nimroz, officials said. United Nations officials in neighboring Pakistan say they have received reports that about 300 people have been hospitalized with injuries suffered in the flash floods. IMF REFORMS ALONE AREN'T SOLVING INDONESIAN CRISIS: Coasting to another five-year term but under pressure to halt soaring food prices, President Suharto called for changes yesterday to an International Monetary Fund plan to help save his economy. Suharto told the 1,000member People's Consultative Assembly, which is expected to re-elect him unopposed Suharto later this week, that he remained committed to carrying out the IMF's $43 billion rescue package. However, Suharto said additional strategies were needed as life gets tougher in the world's fourth-most populous country. Congress says Saddam must be removed WASHINGTON (AP) - Members of Congress from both parties agreed yesterday the U.Nbrokered agreement on weapons inspections is unlikely to work and the only real solution to the festering problem with Iraq is to drive Saddam Hussein from power. Several lawmakers said on yesterday's news programs that the Iraqi president should be tried as an international war criminal to show the United States is right to bring about his downfall. " It is our goal to remove him from power because it's patently obvious to all observers that as long as he's there, we're faced with this enormous challenge," Sen. John McCain, RAriz., said. Seo. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that Annan made Saddam "look pretty good in the eyes of the rejectionist Arab states." during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," yesterday in Washinton Inspection regimes are unlikely to work as long as Saddam is i n power, said Sen. Bob Kerrey, DNeb., on the same program. "We've got to change the objective in Iraq and say that we're going to try to replace this dictatorship with a democracy." Sandy. Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser, agreed yesterday in a Washington Post opinion piece that the United States should support Iraqi opposition groups. But he cautioned that past efforts to overthrow a government-by proxy, at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, appears on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday in Washington. or Hungary in 1956, failed. "Before we embrace lofty goals," Berger wrote, "we must be sure this time that we are prepared for the ride." The deal worked out a week ago between U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Saddam on opening up Iraq's presidential sites to weapons inspectors to avert what appeared to be imminent U.S. military action has been met in Washington with general suspicion and, particularly among Republicans, derision. Critics contend Saddam will never live up to his word, he has no intention of revealing his chemical and biological weapons programs and the deal, by adding diplomats to the inspectors going into the disputed presidential sites, makes it easier for Saddam to move weapons before inspectors arrive. British country folk assail government A Labor legislator has initiated a bill to ban LONDON (AP) - A quarter-million people hunters in red coats, fishermen carrying rods and fox hunting with hounds, provoking anger among thousands of men and women who gallop reels, children, a brass band - poured into across frozen farmland on winter days in pursuit London yesterday to protest a government they of the fox. say threatens their rural way of life. Hunting From the grouse opponents say it moors of Scotland is barbaric to and the green allow dogs to tear valleys of Wales a fox to death and England, and that no landowners and civilized society laborers, fox can tolerate it. hunters and their Hunters say opponents brought they provide a their diverse vital control of grievances to the foxes, which are capital in Britain's o. a farmyard pest. largest single .~ The march was demonstration ~ organized by the since anti-nuclear 8 pro-hunting marcbes in the ·· ~ Countryside early 1980s. ~ Alliance to Ina show of protest the strength that filled Thousands of country people and supporters make their legislation, but an main roads way toward London's Hyde Park yesterday to voice their array of ideas through the city fears for the future of Britain's rural life. joined in. center, they Through all the marched in various issues ran the thread of concern about complaint about a government many see as preserving the countryside and a sense that the unsympathetic and full of urban dwellers who government favors urban views. don't understand their ways. Not all the marchers were country folk. Peter The crowd, which Scotland Yard estimated at Pender.said the only countryside he knew about 250,000, marched two miles from the Thameswas out the window at his flat. side Victoria Embankment through Trafalgar But he said he resented the government's Square to Hyde Park. "Tony Blair Doesn't Care About Country Life" decision to ban the sale of beef on the bone because of concerns that it could spread mad proclaimed a sign attacking the prime minister. Fox hunting was at the heart of ,the matter_. .... cow disease. ! '-'~1"'""'- •••••••, •· ........ |