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Show A The Daily Herald Monday, February 22, 1993 m IHeatth Defense secretary gets hospitalized WASHINGTON - (AP) De- fense Secretary Les Aspin suffered shortness of breath late Sunday and was admitted to a hospital. Doctors attributed the problem to a "a mild heart condition," the Defense Department said today. Aspin's spokesman, Vernon Guidry, said the secretary was conscious and "in possession of his faculties." The Aspin has a hisheart of problems. tory However, a Pentagon statement issued several hours after Aspin was admitted to Georgetown Hospital said his symptoms were triggered by a "fever caused by a series of immunizations." pre-existi- ng leukemia risks - mid-Janua- ry upper- NEW YORK (AP) Cigarette smoking may raise a person's risk of leukemia by 30 percent and cause about 14 percent of the nation's adult leukemia cases, scientists reported today. That would mean perhaps 3,600 cases a year, said researchers who pooled results from 15 studies that included more than 4.5 million people. The estimated 30 percent increase is relatively small. A longtime smoker runs about a 1,000 percent increase in risk of lung cancer, for example. Still, the leukemia link "gives you one other good reason not to smoke," said study ' l - 7 ' : n. i bia. Witnesses say King '"fit ''W followed orders - One of LOS ANGELES (AP) the four white policemen accused Star-New- Girl re-ena- ct - A PITTSBURGH (AP) girl accidentally strangled herself with a dog leash while a scene from the trying to horror movie "Pet Sematary" as other children watched, police ct said. Chrissy Johnson was found dead of asphyxiation in the basement of her family's home Saturday afternoon, the Allegheny County Coroner's Office said Sunday. Five young children with her at the time told investigators they were "playing Pet Sematary" afmovie, ter watching the said police Cmdr. Gwen Elliot. The movie, based on the Stephen King novel, centers on a haunted cemetery where the buried remains of animals and humans come back to life. ed Letterman will stay in New York The bright NEW YORK ( AP) lights of Broadway apparently California's sun in the of wooing David Letterman. comedian has deThe talk show to the his move cided to Ed Sullivan Theater on the Great White Way rather than Los Anwhen he leaves NBC for geles CBS this summer, according to several reports today. Since signing a multimillion-dolla- r deal to switch networks last month, there has been considerable speculation Letterman would access to Hollygo West for easier wood guests and studio space. : out-shin- ed , late-nig- ht i t I' ; J -- 4 1 , I t '' o .' . , ? " ... " AP Pnoto First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, speaks to Herbert Zohn, of the Eleanor Roosevelt Monument Fund, Sunday in New York statue of Roosevelt. Clinton attended near a replica of an a benefit to raise funds for a Roosevelt monument. s. dies trying to movie deficit-reductio- By JOHN KING AP Political Writer Brownson, director of chronic disease prevention at the Missouri Department of Health in Colum- of using excessive force to arrest Rodney King went at the black motorist "like you'd use a broom to kill a mouse," a witness said. Nine people who were not called to testify in the officers' state trial last year said they saw King comply with police orders before he was beaten, according to an internal police report cited in Sunday's Pasadena 'They also told investigators they never saw King exhibit the bizarre and uncontrollable behavior described by police, the newspaper sfid. Police spokeswoman Francine Spada declined to comment, saying she lacked access to the report. 500-pou- nd years. So. what will it lake to fix the system? "There's no great mystery what's wrong," says Dorgan. "Health care costs too much. We've got to bring prices down." Getting there won't be simple, Durenberger says. "We don't even know today what it w ill take to bring the cost of care w ithin. say 9 percent ... (of total income), which I believe we can do in 10 years." That, presumably, is one question to be answered by the big government task force headed by the president's w ife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. The president promises to offer a plan in May. Estimates of the taxpayer cost of overhaul, including universal coverage, range as high as $90 billion a year 50 percent more n than Clinton's plan. Where do you find the money? Doubling the cigarette tax to 48 cents a pack could raise S3. 5 billion of that, for example. Nearly tripling the beer tax and raising the wine and liquor tax by 20 percent would bring in about $4 billion. health insurance Taxing employer-pai- d over SAW a month for a family and over $165 for a single person would raise another deficit-reductio- $22 billion. Gore urges U.N. to take on role in Somalia more quickly Ross or re taxes Committee, says Congress has no alternative but to act this year, but adds it is too early to talk higher taxes. WASHINGTON One tax increase this "Hopefully, savings generated by (mediyear may not be enough. cal) price controls or cost containment will After outlining billions of dollars of tax finance a health-car- e plan," Dorgan said. hikes last week to reduce the deficit and But don't look for easy answers. revitalize the economy, President Clinton "Health care is the gorilla in the deficit," Dorgan says. "You can do all may ask Americans this spring to dip into their pockets to overhaul the nation's medicalsorts of dances around the fire on spending -care and tax increases, but if you don't fix cuts system. The possibility is strong enough that health care, you're not going to solve this White House Budget Director Leon Panetta country's problems." In that, Clinton, Dorgan and Durenberger acknowledges publicly that specific taxes on are among the likely tobacco and alcohol agree. In fact, nowhere in his economic speech targets. Wednesday night was Clinton more emphatTreasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen stops a ic: "All of our efforts to strengthen the bit short, saying only that "they will remain an option on the table." economy will fail unless we also take this not next year, not five years from Clinton's top health advisers are said to be year now but this year bold steps to reform our weighing other options. Among them: rehealth-car- e of the on tax workers to part pay system." quiring health insurance premiums paid by their emAssuming Congress approves Clinton's n entire plan, the deficit w ill ployers; limiting Medicare benefits for continue its downward slide. But in 1997 it retirees, and even imposing a will start rising again without a major health limited national sales tax. overhaul. Meanwhile, transition advisers have told sweep. who Sen. Byron Dorgan, Clinton that price controls on private health Today the nation spends 14 cents of every care will be required if universal health in- pressed for action on health care while a dollar on health care. Unless the trend is surance is to be achieved before the end of member of the House Ways and Means reversed, it will reach 20 cents within seven his first term, according to The Washington Post. The assessment given to Clinton in said that to cover the more than 36 million Americans with no health care coverage would cost $175 billion a year over the next four years and could not be achieved before 1997 without price controls, the newspaper said. On Capitol Hill, less than a week after Clinton urged Congress to raise taxes by about $60 billion a year in the name of deficit reduction, it is difficult to find a lawmaker wanting to discuss a new round of taxes for health care. "Nobody can ever say we can get to 100 percent (health insurance) coverage without a tax," said Sen. David Durenberger, an authority on the system and a member of the Senate Finance Committee. "It's hard to imagine covering 36 million ... (who now have no insurance) without additional public subsidies." But Durenberger advocates a gradual apreform, rather than an proach to health-car- e effort to fix the system in one massive By JIM LUTHER AP Tax Writer -income Smoking raises m may roquln care ref Mrs. Roosevelt paved path for Mrs. Clinton By JOEL STASHENKO Associated Press Writer - She HYDE PARK, N.Y. was poised, energetic, intelligent and a partner in the presidency with her husband. More than 50 years before Hillary Rodham Clinton took the White House by storm, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt transformed America's concept of a first lady. Mrs. Clinton appeared at a benefit Sunday to raise funds for a new Eleanor Roosevelt monument in New York City, and help to repay a debt that historians and scholars say she owes to Mrs. Roosevelt. "Eleanor took the heat and Hillary Clinton is taking her own heat," said Patricia Duane Lichtenberg. executive director of the Eleanor Roosevelt Center Mrs. Roosevelt's at home and a national historic site in Hyde Park. But Mrs. Roosevelt "set the precedent, so I think that people are more accepting of what HilVal-Kil- l, lary will do." naming his wife to lead an effort to reform the nation's health care system. President Clinton is being above-boar- d about the role his wife will play in his administration. Previous presidents have been less forthcoming for fear of negative public reaction, though scholars say several White House wives includAdams. ing Abigail Abigail Fillmore, Mary Todd Lincoln and Edith Wilson were influential advisers to their husBy bands. "I think it's a courageous move on the part of Clinton to put it right up front and not to try to pretend and say she isn't involved," said Winifred Wan-dersea history professor at Hartwick College in Oneonta. "I think that's a breakthrough e, that will have real repercussions for first ladies in the fu- ture." Before Mrs. Roosevelt, first ladies had to wield their influence with circumspection, Wandersee said. Mrs. Roosevelt, in fact, often denied having special sway over FDR just because she gave him "opinions" on some mat- ters of import. "Sometimes I contributed from a different point of view that was all," she once said. "And he would sometimes use it. And I would say to him, Do you mind if I would say this or that?' He would say, 'You go right ahead. And if you get into trouble I shall just say, 'I'm sorry. I can't do anything with my w ife.'" But despite criticism of Mrs. Roosevelt from newspaper columnists and others, millions of Americans admired her as a wellspring of hope and strength to help them endure the Great Depression and World War II. Her first official act after FDR was inaugurated in 1933 was to tour the slums of Washington, to dramatize the squalor of the nation's capital. Her later trips into coal mines and to the impoverished communities of Appalachia were revelations for many Americans. Mrs. Roosevelt promoted the candidacies of several leading of the Roosevelt administration, including Frances Perlights kins, the first female Cabinet secretary . research trom defense to civilian and commercial areas as well as offer incentives for private companies to expand research and development of new products. Clinton has asked Gore to spear- SAN JOSE, Calif. The Clinton administration is voicing its displeasure and urging the United Nations to "move more quickly" head the initiative. to take over peacekeeping opera"This has been the focus of an tions in Somalia so most U.S. enormous amount of work by the troops can come home, Vice Presipresident and his advisers," Gore dent Al Gore says. said of the technology plan, which In an interview Sunday, Gore includes creation of a new civilian also distanced the administration research agency and investments from the remarks of a senior State in fiber optics and supercomputer Department official, held over networks. "The competition between us temporarily from the Bush administration, who said in a recent and Europe and Japan is now in the speech that Russian President Bo- high technology areas," Gore said ris Yeltsin was "just about at the in casting the initiative as a key cog end of his usefulness." in Clinton's economic policy. And the vice president promised During a discussion of foreign that he and Clinton would "go to policy issues facing the new adthe mat" to offer political support ministration, Gore distanced the to lawmakers who cast tough votes White House from the recent rein favor of the administration's marks by State Department official economic package. He rebuked Richard Armitage, who also said Republican critics of the plan as he believed Yeltsin's "days are the architects of the deficit mess somewhat numbered." Clinton is trying to clean up. "He was certainly not speaking Gore was interviewed as he flew for the administration when he from Washington to California to made those remarks," Gore said, join Clinton in promoting the ad- adding that Clinton and the Rusministration's economic package sian leader speak periodically by and a technology initiative that telephone. would redirect some government When former President Bush sent U.S. troops to protect relief convoys in Somalia, he said he hoped they would be leaving by the time Clinton took office. Although that was considered an unrealistic timetable, Clinton and Pentagon planners had hoped the withdrawal would be in full swing by now. On Saturday, the special U.S. envoy to Somalia. Robert B. Oakley, criticized the United Nations for stalling its takeover of the operation, which now involves nearly 18.000 U.S. troops, all but of whom are supposed to be replaced by a U.N. commanded peacekeeping force. 5,-0- 00 -- Asked about the slow pace of the transition to the international force. Gore said: ""None of this is a big surprise but it is nevertheless quite important for the U.N. to move more quickly. ... The essence of the same message has been delivered (toU.N. officials) in oth- er ways." In discussing the economic plan and the administration's intensive lobbying effort to win public and congressional support. Gore had harsh words for Republican critics who have said Clinton's plan includes too much in new taxes and too ittle in spending cuts. 1 Religious freedom case heads to Supreme Court By TOM HAYS Associated Press Writer CENTER MORICHES, N.Y. A small evangelical church setting dow n roots in this Long Island village in 1988 thought the public school auditorium would be ideal for screening a Christian movie series. The school district politely said no. Elections and political or civic meetings were fine on school premises, but religious meetings were out. it said. Its policy, based on a New York state rule that sets out 10 purposes for w hich use of schoolhouse facilities may be granted, comes under the scrutiny of the U.S. Supreme Court this week. If the justices side w ith Lamb's Chapel church, all public schools might be forced to open their doors to nearly any outside organization. Arguments were set for Wednesday. Lamb's Chapel sued in 1990, but two low er federal courts rejected the lawsuit, ruling that school facilities were a "limited public forum" restricted to uses. The church wanted to show after-scho- ol non-religio- "Turn Your Heart Toward Home" in the auditorium after veteran Ken Leger, 51, a resident since 1955. "It's no big deal." These days, it's hard to find anyone in town who remembers exactly how the dispute got started. The schools superintendent and pastor at the time both have moved on to other jobs, leaving their successors to answer questions as best they can. "My impression is that it w as all handled at an administrative level," said Superintendent Joseph Donovan, w ho oversees the 1 district. "It was very rou- have difficulty hearing in noisy situations. hear people speak but have difficulty understanding the words. have difficulty understanding on the phone. I have to turn up the radio or television to where it's uncomfortably loud for others. I'm over age 55 and haven't had my hearing tested in more than a year. I I ,100-stude- nt tine." I Pastor Allen Snapp, who was an assistant pastor at the time, recalls the incident as typifying the travails of a small church trying to establish itself in the community. Considering the district had allowed gospel singers, a Salvation Army youth band and "New Age" lecturer to appear in school facilities, "we really felt we had been discriminated against," Snapp said. The church board eventually contacted Concerned Women for America, a conservative group that filed a lawsuit on behalf of the church. anti-aborti- The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative Washschool hours. foundation founded by The potentially important case, ington legal Pat Roberttelevision evangelist which deals w ith religious freedom is providing the legal help for son, and the relationship between Lamb's Chapel. church and state, has barely made church a stir in Center Moriches, a quiet Today, the residential community on the still meets in a rented storefront Great South Bay. chapel in an industrial park w ith w the eather, cabinet makers and other craftsThe federal deficit, almost men. As far as the Supreme Court anyIslanders hockey when come is to case goes, "We as a church have else up likely thing beers afternoon for been praying for it. but it hasn't regulars gather at the Veterans of Foreign Wars caused much turmoil in the comPost 4 14. munity," Snapp said. "I think 1 read about it once in Religious leaders share in the said was that ambivalence. and it," the paper If you said "yes" to any of the above, you should get your hearing tested at a Miracle-ECenter. For a FREE hearing test call your Miracle-ECenter today! ar ar 224-944- 4 735 E. 1200 S. 150-memb- er OREM Miracle-EAmrrK V ar llrarmf IMvKi llalJIiprg. lnc |