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Show Saturday Saturday Briefin Dec. , 1990 A3 Whistle ivhile you work ... walk ... sleep Building emits a ! ; ! high-pitche- - NEW YORK (AP) You know how to whistle, dont you? Just put a dome-shap- ed skyscraper together and let the wind blow. Case in point: the Citys- -' pire. Wind whipping around the . louvered top of the building, 800 ; feet above the street, emits a high- pitched wail that echoes for blocks I through Manhattan's concrete can- yons, city officials said Friday. "From Third Avenue, down to the 40s, up to the 60s, over on the , West Side the calls have come from all over," said Ian Matthews of the city Department of Environ-- ! mental Conservation." 1 ry "The callers said basically there's a noise, and it's driving me batty, and I don't know where it's from." coming On Wednesday, department investigators solved that last problem. After more than a month of searching, they zeroed in on the wail that echoes throughout Manhattan's streets d Cityspire at Seventh Avenue amd West 56th Street, went up to the roof, and found the eight-side- d dome was wailing away. A summons was issued for violating the city noise control code. If the building is found guilty, a fine of $220 to $880 can be imposed. "With the right winds, it becomes a big whistle," said Matthews. "I don't know the acoustics, but it's a very loud, very big whistle. And if you lived in the neighborhood, it could drive you insane." Just ask Anthony Mazzola, editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar who lives two blocks from the building. The siren call sent him scurrying around the neighborhood, desperate to find its source. "I've been all over the street trying to find the noise," said Mazzola. "You think you're in a loony bin. You can't get away from it." was not alone. The Mazzola de- partment received hundreds of complaints durring the past five weeks about the aggravating reverberation, Matthews said. This was news to the building's developer and its architect, who knew nothing of the alleged noise pollution. "When somebody calls and says, I 'Your building's whistling' mean, hey, come on," said Howard Hornstein, the lawyer for building developer Ian Bruce Eichner. Hornstein said his side is waiting for a copy of the complaint before responding, although architect Sam Saccia of the architecture firm in Chicago believes Murphy-Jah- n the whistling if it exists can be stopped. The sound doesn't occur every day; the wind must be coming in at the right speed. The largest number of complaints occurred around Veteran's Day, when the wind gusted to 30 mph, said Matthews. On Wednesday, gusts reached 23 mph. Reporters heard no buildings whistling on Friday, when the air was nearly calm. It's not the first time the Cityspire has drawn unwanted attention. When the building was completed, 11 feet it stood 814 feet tall above a limit. The ensuing controversy ended when developer Eichner agreed to construct more than 7,000 feet of it dance space for groups in his building. Hornstein is beginning to wonder if it's all worth it. "The point is, first we had the height issue, now we've got the whistling building, and I've been lawyering it through the whole thing," said Hornstein. "I mean, really. The city approved these plans." - city-impos- ed non-prof- AP Lascrphoto building in New York, has been the target of Cityspire, a noise complaints by hundreds of people. ry Nation World SMSL Accidental death reported A WASHINGTON (AP) Army private was accidentally crushed to death by an Army truck in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, the Pentagon said Friday. The victim was identified as Dustin Craig LaMou-reauof Bremerton, Wash. He was deployed to the Persian Gulf with the 20th Engineer Brigade of Fort Bragg, N.C., as part of Operation Desert Shield. The accident occurred about 6 p.m. local time on Him x, Wednesday. While participating in a construction project, LaMoureaux was crushed between the truck and a pallet of construction materials, the Pentagon said. The incident is being investigated. His was the 48th accidental death in Desert Shield. The Pentagon also said it has determined that the previously reported death Tuesday in Saudi Arabia of Lt. Col. Joe Hancock, a Tennessee National Guard commander, was a suicide. Hancock died of a gunshot wound while in his tent. The Pentagon said there have been three Desert Shield deaths due to natural causes and one earlier LAYTON (AP) The former president of the failed Citizens Bank pf Ogden has been bound over to 2nd District Court for trial on a charge of issuing a bad check for $4,000. Gary S. Harris, 59, will be summoned to answer the second-degre- e felony charge in Farmington. However, an arraignment date was not immediately scheduled. Harris is charged with intentionally writing the check to a North Ogden landscaping company as partial payment for work done on his former Layton home in September 1989. A second-degre- e felony charge of issuing a bad check in excess of $1,000 is punishable, upon conviction, 0 by a maximum sentence of years in prison and a fine of 'up .to It jUUNOHril Ik col ttfK .'unfit.-.- CttK VU III C fa ; IMMt c tin. it lUMW i aw IK tiaSS CAVE WHO suicide. -- fVH;K one-to-1- $10,000. Boat overturns, 60 drown ; , 'iti-t- : . :'- - ed Lockerbie inquiry adjourns A Pan Am official on DUMFRIES, Scotland (AP) Friday told an inquiry into the 1988 terrorist bombing of Flight 103 that one of the flight crew who died on the doomed jet should not have been on board. The inquiry then adjourned for the Christmas holidays until Jan. 22. Pan Am's director of flight services, Michael Sullivan, said Flight 103, with 246 passengers on board, should have had 12 flight attendants instead of 13. All passengers and crew died when the flight exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. Falling debris from the jumbo jet that orginated in Frankfurt, Germany, killed 11 others on the ground. Marina Larracoechea, whose sister was a flight attendant on the Pan Am jet, asked about the discrepancy. Sullivan said he could not explain it and that the only one who could, the pursar, died on the flight. Valium issued to gulf troops IN EASTERN SAUDI ARABIA (AP) - The U.S. military is issuing injectable Valium to Persian Gulf soldiers to protect them against chemical weapons, a Navy doctor said Friday. Valium, the brand name for the drug diazepam, helps ease convulsions from severe nerve gas exposure, said Cmdr. Thad Zajdowicz, the doctor in charge of readiness and training for chemical weapons decontamination at Navy Fleet Hospital Five. The doctor said the military decided to use Valium as an weapon agent before the troops were deployed to Saudi Arabia in August, but the drug is only now beginning to get to the soliders. Zajdowicz said Fleet Hospital Five received its first Valium shipment last week. The drug presently issued to all service personnel along with their protective suit can reverse peripheral symptoms of nerve as exposure sweating, lung congestion and increases in body fluids, said Zajdowicz. al post-date- post-datin- AP Laserphoto rs A PARIS (AP) Corsican was charged Friday in connection with the 1985 theft of nine impressionist masterpieces from a Paris museum. The works, including Claude Monet's "Impression Sunrise," which gave the movement its name, were stolen Oct. 27, 1985, from the Marmottan Museum. During the daytime theft, five masked gunmen held about 40 visitors and guards at bay while making off with four Monets, two Renoirs and three other works. The stolen works were recovered by police this week. The suspect, Pierre Comiti, was arrested in Corsica and flown to Paris, where he was charged Friday with receiving goods stolen in an armed robbery. Judge Catherine Courcol ordered him held indefinitely. Police questioned Comiti after finding photographs of the stolen paintings at his home in Corsica, a French-controllMediterranean island. He reportedly led investigators to an unoccupied villa where the paintings were being kept. The combined value of the stolen works was estimated at $20 million. Harris remained free on his own recognizance pending trial. Harris, also former president of the Charter Thrift and Loan, contends that the check he gave to Planned Outdoor Living was postdated for the next day, when he planned to have money to cover the : . draft. Rod South wick, a representative; of the landscaping company, testified at the hearing that the check never cleared the bank, however, and the account was later closed. Southwick also told the court he never agreed to d check. take a g The issue is a vital part of the state's case against Harris, because it is a criminal offense, to write a check when a person knows there is no money to cover the draft. now-defun- ct A boat capsized and 60 of LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) its passengers drowned in the Atlantic Ocean off Nigeria's southern Cross River state, newspapers reported Friday. Most victims of the accident, which occurred late Thursday, were traders carrying goods between fishing communities, the reports said. Eight of 10 survivors saved themselves by clinging to petrol drums which were on the boat and floated when it sunk. The Concord newspaper of Lagos quoted witnesses as saying the boat was overloaded. Another report said the boat was on its maiden voyage and sprung a massive leak. Boating accidents are common in the area. Seventy holiday-makedrowned on Sept. 2 after their boat capsized off the neighboring state of Akwa Ibom. Charges stem from art theft banker: Bad-chec- k 49 years ago A Navy buglar plays "Taps" to conclude a ceremony which marked the 49th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, Lucas extradited - HenTALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) ry Lee Lucas, who once claimed he killed nearly 600 people in 26 states, was extradited to Florida on Friday to stand trial in four slayings. Lucas was brought from Texas, where he had been scheduled to die by lethal injection on Monday. The Texas Court of (Criminal Appeals on Nov. 29 granted Lucas a stay in the 1979 slaying of an unidentified woman known as "orange socks," the only clothing she was wearing when found. Lucas, 54, was indicted in May 1939 in the 1980-8- 1 slayings of four people in the Florida Panhandle. "We are gratified that this brutal case will finally come to trial, allowing the communities and families involved to once and for all put this matter behind them," said Commissioner Tim Moore of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. trial dates had been set. The Florida indictments accuse Lumurder in the Dec. cas of 15, 1980, shooting of gas station at No first-degr- 1941. Behind him are etched the names of the members who died in the USS Arizona crew surprise attack. tendant John P. McDaniel Jr. of Jackson County; the Feb. 10, 1981, shooting of JerUyn Murphy Peoples at her Holmes County home; the March 25, 1981, strangulation and stabbing of Brenda Jo Burton in Holmes County; and the April 9, 1981, slaying of Mary Ruby McCary, Washington County. Juror: That's me' Police DAYTON, Tenn. (AP) didn't have to look far to find the suspect after he was indicted by a grand jury on drug charges. When the name Gene Robinson was presented Wednesday to the Rhea County grand jury as that of a drug dealer, one of the jurors raised his hand and said, "That's me," according to authorities. Robinson, 24, was abruptly excused from the panel, replaced by an alternate, indicted by his suddenly former fellow jurors, then arrested at his home. 0 Robinson, released after posting bond on charges of selling a controlled substance, called the indictment a mistake. $1,-75- Safer roads sought SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A Vet sentence upheld - SAN FRANCISCO (AP) A state appeals court upheld a murder sentence for a Vietnam veteran who lost his legs in the war, saying it had sympathy for his wounds but could not excuse his killing of a policeman. "Most severely wounded Vietnam veterans have managed to deal with their anguish without committing murder," the court's presiding judge, Clinton White, said in a ruling Thursday. Stanley Verketis, who lost both legs in a land mine in 1968, returned home suffering from drastic personality changes and became addicted to heroin and alcohol, according to testimony at his trial. He was convicted of fatally shooting police officer Arthur Koch, who had responded to a report of gunfire at Verketis' home in Fairfield northeast of San Francisco in July 1984. At his appeal, the defense argued that a life sentence was cruel and unusual punishment because of Verketis' Utahns want stricter enforcement of drunk driving laws and more Utah Highway Patrol troopers to make the state's highways safer. ; The survey, conducted by Dan Jones & Associates in August, found s, that nearly or 61 percent, of all respondents felt the UHP should concentrate more effort on controlling drunk drivers. Younger respondents were more likely to favor tougher DUI enforcement, while residents 50 and over leaned toward speed enforcement as the best way to improve safety, according to the poll. Overall job performance of the Highway Patrol was evaluated by citizens as "good" 57 percent of the time and "excellent" 25 percent of two-third- the time. Eight-si- x percent also viewed the UHP as effective in doing their job. Those who characterized the patrol as ineffective cited an insufficient number of troopers as their main reason. Only one in three respondents were aware that most of the state has no UHP officers on duty after midnight, according to the Utah Department of Public Safety, which commissioned the poll. Reporter jailed for keeping mum - CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) A newspaper reporter was handcuffed and taken to jail Friday for refusing to answer certain questions about her interviews with a capital murder defendant. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeal refused later in the day to consider an appeal, and gave no explanation. Earlier, an apologetic State District Judge Eric Brown gave Libby Averyt of one last the Corpus Christi Caller-Time- s chance to answer the questions before he signed an order to jail her for recontempt of court. The porter again refused. "Miss Averyt, it appears we are both actors playing our parts," Brown told the reporter before sheriff's deputies led her off to jail. "We are both doing our jobs." Brown ordered Averyt jailed Thursday, but did not sign the order until Friday. The judge found her in contempt of court at a pre-trihearing in the murder trial of Jermarr Arnold. Ms. Averyt was found in contempt after she defied an ordered to testify. Instead she invoked the First Amendment and similar provisions of the Texas Constitution in refusing 12 times to answer questions about her interviews with Arnold in October and November. Averyt and the newspaper's attorney, Jorge Rangel, maintained that journalists should not be compelled to reveal information obtained from news sources if that information was not published. But Brown said the rights of a man on trial for murder outweigh press' privilege to withhold material. Attorneys for the newspaper were seeking to have Ms. Averyt released on al bond. She was not locked into ed survey indicates a cell after being booked and fingerprinted at the jail. The judge put Ms. Averyt in the temporary custody of the bailiff at his court at the Nueces County Courthouse. Nine media organizations opposed to the reporter's jailing filed a "friend of the court" brief on her behalf Friday at the Criminal Appeals Court. Brown ordered Ms. Averyt jailed indefinitely until she answers a defense attorney's questions about her interviews with Arnold, who faces trial in the 1983 slaying of jewelry store clerk Christina Sanchez. In Ms. Averyt's reports, Arnold discussed the robbery and slaying and expressed a lack of remorse, his belief that he deserves the death penalty, his previous criminal activity and told how he manipulated the insanity defense in previous trials for other crimes. She conducted several interviews with Arnold at the jail and over the Libby Averyt is led to jail Friday. |