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Show Saturday, September 18, 2004 DAILY HERALD A5 FAST FACT MORMG BRIEFING Yosemite National Park, which opened on March 1. 1872, was the first U.S. national park. Source The Book of 1,001 Trivia Questions Compiled from Daily Herald wire services The Nation The WORLD ;? , : u . 4" 1 hi 'H i Vi ' - X, 1 WALTER ASTRADAWsSOCiated Press Oscar Valdez surveys his destroyed home in the outskirts of Naga, about 125 miles north of Santo Domingo, D'dmvkican Republic, after the passingof Hurricane Jeanne on Friday. Tropical Storm Jeanne hits Dominican Republic SAMANA, Dominican Re- 65 percent of the 1,002 people interviewed think Slow-movin- PHIL .. Press KLEINAssociated attorney, Thomas Mesereau Jr., center, speaks to reporters after the mother of the accuser testified in Santa Maria courthouse on Friday in Santa Maria, Calif. Mother testifies in Jackson case cused two years earlier of making death threats and building pipe bombs, but did not hand up any indictments. In a report released Thursday, the grand jury also said it was "troubled" by documents in what remains the deadliest school attack in U.S. history. It was at least the third investigation to place no blame for the slaughter of 13 people by suicidal teens Eric Harris and Dy lan Klebold. Victims' families said the confirmed their suspicions that the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office covered up mistakes that could have led authorities to the killers as much as two years before the attack. The grand jury said it didn't hand up any indictments because all the witnesses claimed to know nothing about the missing sheriff 's records. The records involved a draft search warrant for Harris' house a year before the attack. Report: Los Alamos lab to remove nuke materials SANTA MARIA, Calif . The mother of the alleged victim in the Michael Jackson mo- lestation case said Friday she did not remember a private investigator telling her that he was working for one of the pop star's attorneys. The woman, who came face to face with the pop star Friday for the first time since the case began, also claimed she did not know .why she was called to testify and that she believed the purpose of the hearing was "just to bring me more torture." The accuser's mother glanced briefly at Jackson, whom she had called "the devil" at a grand jury hearing earlier this year. Jackson, 46, stared at her throughout her testimony. Jackson's attorneys are trying to show that the accuser's mother and prosecutors should have known private investigator Bradley Miller was working 3 y for Jackson's Mark Geragos when authorities seized items from Miller's Los Alamos National Labora- - V ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. nutory plans within a year to remove all weapons-grad- e clear material from a part of the lab that has raised security concerns, according to an internal federal document. The National Nuclear Security Administration document said the highly enriched uranium and plutonium in Technical Area 18 would be moved to a facility at the Nevada Test Site starting this month. An NNSA spokesman would not immediately comment Friday on the Aug. 20 document, which was obtained by the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has said he is committed to moving the nuclear materials out of the research center because the area is difficult to defend and vulnerable to terrorist attack. The lab, operated by the University of California under contract with the Energy Department, has recently suffered a string of embarrassing management failures. In June, the keys to Technical Area 18 were missing for 16 hours before a security guard noticed. An investigation de- - ' termined that no security breach occurred before the keys to the area were found in a security vehicle, a lab spokesman has said. then-attorne- re-po-rt arrested on of charges making Web threats against school office. one piece as planned. As a Explosives bring down , cloud of dust rose, the crowd broke into applause. nuclear-pladome Dudley Leavitt Sr., who With WISCASSET, Maine helped build the dome, watched a thunderclap of explosives, the its destruction with a tinge of containment dome of the Maine sadness. He said he thought the Yankee nuclear power plant plant had a lot more life left in it. "It's a shame that they shut toppled to the ground Friday in one of the final steps of the fthis down. There are plants that are older that are still in operaace's decommissioning. Hundreds of people gathered tion across the country," said to watch the blast, the first time Leavitt, 66. explosives have been used to knock down a commercial reExpert: Fetus expelled actor containment building, ofafter Laci's death nt ficials said. .The structure was the most visible symbol of the plant during its 24 years of operation. Maine Yankee's board voted to close the plant in 1997, 11 years before its license was to expire, after operational problems escalated following the. discovery of cracked tubes in 1994. About 1,100 pounds of explosives were placed in drilled holes to topple the reinforced-concret-e dome, which was designed to withstand earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricane-force wind Its walls were 4 12 feet thick at the base and 2 12 feet thick at the top. As the countdown concluded, the explosives lit up, the legs supporting the dome buckled and the structure came down in steam-generat- REDWOOD CITY, Calif. Autopsy photos of the fetus Laci Peterson had been carry- ing before her death brought her husband, Scott, to tears and drew gasps from jurors in his murder trial The images, accompanied by expert testimony, were shown Thursday, near the end of the state's case against the former fertilizer salesman. Prosecutors could rest as early as next week. A large white-wa- ll screen was the backdrop for the photos, which also made a few jurors cry and others shift in . their seats or cover their mouths. The fetus' remains appeared gelatin-likits outer tissue ' somewhat transparent. This body was very soft. It e, ii I came apart yery easily," said Dr. Brian Peterson, the forensic pathologist who performed autopsies on Laci and the fetus. Dr. Peterson, who is not to either Laci or Scott Peterson, testified that the fetus had not been born before Laci's death and was instead expelled from her decaying body. The pathologist said the remains of the fetus, a boy the couple planned to name Conner, was much better preserved than Laci's body and still had all of its limbs and organs. "My conclusion ... is that Conner had likely been protected by the uterus" and expelled possibly weeks after Laci's body was put in the water, he said. However, on by defense attorney Mark Geragos, Dr. Peterson acknowledged he could not determine whether the fetus had been born alive. He estimated its age to be nine months. Laci was considered by her doctors to be eight months pregnant when she disappeared. CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. A boy was arrested and police found weapons, ammunition and paraphernalia in his home after a tip that he was making threats online against his high school fellow students and an officer assigned to the bomb-makin- re-Hi- Grand jury. Deputies knew about prior threats by Columbine attacker DENVER A grand jury said authorities withheld a document showing deputies knew one of the Columbine High School gunmen had been ac- - ' n g building. Chippewa Valley High School which Andrew had begun attending was . , only days earlier searched Thursday night, but nothing suspicious was found. The teenager's father and a man accused of giving the boy g instructions also were arrested. Investigators received a tip earlier Thursday from a Washington state police officer that a student was making threats against the school in a chat room, police said Friday at a news conference. The Washington officer's daughter had been in the chat room talking with the student when he allegedly indicated he had a number of weapons and planned to kill a police liaison officer assigned to the school, authorities said. "He was angry at everybody. I don't know if it was one particular race," Clinton Township police Capt. Douglas Mills said. "It didn't realty seem to matter to him. What was in his head, we don't know for sure." Osan-tows- ki bomb-makin- died from a heart attack when he couldn't get to a hospital because of the storm, said Juan Luis German, spokesman for the National Emergency Committee. After hitting the Dominican Republic on Thursday as a hurricane with winds of 80 mph, the storm gradually lost power and was downgraded to a depression late Friday afternoon with 35 mph winds. The storm was moving on a course that would take it through the Bahamas late Saturday, but it was too soon to tell whether it would strengthen or affect Florida, which has been battered by three hurricanes. v ' : ROBERT F. BUKATY Associated Press the implosion of the dome that housed the nuclear reactor at the decommissioned Maine Yankee nuclear power plant on Friday in Wiscasset, Maine. With a thunderclap of explosives, Maine Yankee's containment dome toppled to the ground on Friday in one of the final steps toward completion of the power plant's decommissioning. j arrest two -- Madonna bodyguards TEL AVIV, Israel - Police detained two bodyguards of pop star Madonna on Friday after a brawl with photogra-- , phers waiting for the singer outside her Tel Aviv hotel. Two of the photographers and a policeman who tried to break up the fight were injured, said police spokes' woman Liat PearL "Two security guards were detained for cruestibhihg by the Tel Aviv police depart- ment," Pearl saidr premiers in negotiations on Northern Ireland's future would require the outlawed Irish Republican Army to resume disarmament and issue a new statement that, for the first time, would definitively renounce violence. In return, however, the d Sinn "Fein party is demanding an ironclad commitment up front from the Democratic Unionists, the major British Protestant party, to form and sustain a joint administration. ' All sides reported progress on day two of the talks, which are being led by the prime ministers of Britain and Ireland, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern. Both premiers insist this will be their last major push to revive a Roman administration in the British territory, the central goal of Northern Ireland's Good Friday accord of 1998. The pop diva nas"Beec4& Is- rael since Wednesday, along with 2,000 other studeriaif Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism. Madonna's visitto the country has sparked a media frenzy with the local newspapers devoting pages detailing-he-r luxury hotel suite and even her menu for the Jewish New Year celebrations? have been kepfratXdis-tanc- e during the visit. - IRA-linke- Ainkssafe Catholic-Protesta- NosigDof, Oil pipeline , explodes in Nigeria An oil LAGOS, Nigeria pipeline exploded near Nigeria's largest city as thieves tried to siphon oil from it, sparking a fire that killed at least 30 people, police said Friday. Flames coming from the pipeline scorched the nearby Video-footaBEIJING of the area no-sig- ',. clear; This was not a nu-- . clear explosionthat pened at this , STOCKHOLM, Sweden In a country plagued by sky- e costs, a rocketing new survey presented Friday found that 40 percent of Sweden's population believes it is acceptable to skip work because they feel tired or have ge where North Korea said a huge explosion occurred showed,flJ&'eiis of workers swarming around a dusty conatruc-tio- n site resembling large dam project: while a foreign dipfomaotho visited the site said Frithe day he found n blast was nuclear, South Korearmean-while- , said plumtfugjit to be from the Sept. 9 Wast was 60 miles awltyfrom the site where North Korea said it occurredand may have been. ajSgtural cloud formation. Diplomats from seven countries wetf&$Qw by the secretive communist state to its remote northeast, near tlielaqrder-witChina, on Thursday) verify claims that the explosion was part of work on a hy droelectrfc dam "One thing is vegetation and large plumes of smoke billowed from the village of Amore, which sits across a wide lagoon from Lagos, a city of 13 million people. "People were stealing fuel from the pipeline when it caught fire and exploded," po lice spokesman Emmanuel Ighodalo said of Thursday's blast. At least 30 charred bodies were recovered and more still littered the swamps and waterways surrounding the site of the explosion, making it likely the death toll could reach 50, Ighodalo said. The pipeline, run by d Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., pumps imported fuel from the Lagos seaport to western Nigeria. - " Police LEEDS CASTLE, England A deal taking shape Friday sick-leav- -- not 'illness.' " press Ireland leaders for deal on IRA N. Swedes say fatigue is valid reason for skipping work '!'.' ' state-owne- If Down it goes: Explosives discharge and begin a stressful work situation is also a valid reason for 'Calling in sick and coDecting pay under Sweden's liberal social " " programs. The survey shows "a deep lack of knowledge about what the health insurance is meant to cover," board director Anna Hedborg said of Sweden's 9 million residents. Alf Eckerhall, a social insurance expert with the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, went a step further: Marry Swedes deliberately abuse the system. "The insurance laws clearly state that inability to work because of illness" is the only valid reason to stay home, Eckerhall said. "The key word is 'inability to work' Caribbean. A Dominican man was crushed to death by a falling palm tree Friday, and another British, Irish leagues. The survey, bv the National Social Insurance Board-- , also found that g public Tropical Storm Jeanne lashed the Dominican Republic on Friday with wind and rain that triggered mudslides and collapsed walls before it weakened to a tropical depression and headed toward the Bahamas. Seven were killed across the Entertainer Michael Jackson is surrounded by his family as his trouble getting along with col- hap- sitcSwe-den'sAmbassadof't- . t North Korea, Juigeijer, said by phone fromis North Korea's capital Pyongyang. "This is site where thousands' of people are workingTon aam Duudmg, ' |