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Show Tuesday, May 11, 1993 THE HERALD, Provo, Utah, Page Dl urt nominees Is pa By LINDA P. CAMPBELL Chicago Tribune - From the WASHINGTON nation's long roster of lawyers and judges, who qualifies for that elite group anointed as likely Supreme Court candidates? Consider these examples: Justice Felix Frankfurter gradin his Harvard law uated No. class, was a prosecutor, worked in the U.S. War Department and taught law at Harvard. It also helped that he was one of President Franklin Roosevelt's closest advisers. Justice Sherman Minton of Indiana had a Yale law degree and sat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago for eight years. He had befriended future President Harry Truman in the 1930s when both were in the U.S. Senate. Kenneth Starr graduated from Duke Law School, clerked on the Supreme Court and the 5th Circuit, worked in the Reagan Justice Department and was named to the federal appeals court in Washington. As President George Bush's solicitor general , the government's top courtroom advocate, he frequently was mentioned as a leading Supreme Court candidate. But he 1 vf 1 4 If f ;ymw fMs- til';-:-'- -- ' k ' ' , i - . " y v National Geographic SocietyGeorge F. Mobley Wild tigers number only 7,000 globally and face extinction without effective long-ter- m never got the nod. protection. Conservationists escalate battle for wildlife T h Iff fl By JOY ASCHENBACH National Geographic For AP Special Features A black rhinoceros drops to the ground. A group of chain Namibians converge on the beast and slice off its distinctive horns. It could have been a scene of wanton slaughter: Poachers often 2-t- saw-wieldi- ng f r v 1 .J M, : shoot rhinos for their horns, which are more valuable than captive-breedin- : : -; m .' '11 "It's - WASHINGTON The Environmental Protection Agency proposed adding the Agriculture Department's largest research center on Monday to a list of locations seriously contaminated by hazardous waste. The EPA said that tests of surface water found contamination with solvents, PCBs, pesticides and a number of metals, including cadmium, lead and mercury, at the Bdrsville Agricultural Research a very mysterious process," said federal appeals court Judge Abner Mikva, who has 1 s' been mentioned as a potential Supreme Court candidate, although at 67 he may be too old for serious t t consideration. University of Chicago professor Dennis Hutchinson, a specialist in Supreme Court history, summed it up this way: It's part ... navel contemplation and ... (journalists) having to get some"self-promo-ti- World Wildlife FundMichel Gunther Wildlife officials saw off the homs of a tranquilized African rhino. The new conservation method is based on the theory that hornless rhinos won't be targets. Poachers kill rhinos to sell the horns. trade "is one of the only success The unconventional African us how serious the situation had g stories in conservation," accordtechnique is caught become for the rhino. Then, a dilemma. "We when our focus shifted to the rhiof ing to Cynthia Moss, longtime on the horns about no, no one was watching the tileader in African elephant re- know nothing long-terrhino-savin- m search and conservation. By reducing the demand for ivory, she says, the poaching rate in Kenya, for example, has been cut 90 percent. "The ban has to stay," Moss contends. "The ban is the message. If it is lifted, elephants will be killed again for their ivory." Not everyone agrees. Critics like American author Raymond Bonner indict outside wildlife organizations for imposing such a ban on all African elephant countries. Bonner calls for "sustainable utilization." Africans, he says, should be allowed to cull herds, eat the meat and sell the ivory at sensible levels. To ensure their survival in some parts of Africa, elephants may be put to work. A major problem elephants may help alleviate in many regions, for example, is the tendency for thick bush vegetation to creep onto grazing land. Lions that attack cattle hide in the bush. "Elephants are the architects of the savannas," Moss says. "The combination of elephants and fire keep the savannas open. Even Masai chiefs in Kenya, say, 'Let's get your elephants out there (outside Amboseli National Park) to clear the bush.'" the effects on rhinos of frequent dehorning," says Diana executive vice president of the African Wildlife Foundation in Washington. "Horns regenerate, but they seem to grow back increasingly frayed and fissured. We could have a whole population of rhinos looking like Peruvian guinea pigs.". With National Geographic Society support, Joel Berger of the University of Nevada is in the Namib Desert assessing the ecological consequences of dehorning on the black rhino. Janet Rachlow, also of Nevada, is conducting similar studies on ment-dehorned white rhino in Zimbabwe. Mc-Meek- govern- "There shouldn't be a rush to declare this the one and only way to save rhinos," McMeekin says. "It's situational. Where the rhino habitat is dense bush, poachers could shoot to kill before knowing whether the animal has already been dehorned. On plateaus in Namibia, it may make sense to dehorn." "We don't notice something until there's a crisis," McMeekin adds. "We had known about the elephants for a long time, but look what it took to galvanize world action. It hadn't dawned on gers. Now they are going down the tubes. " Tigers appeal to the same type of markets as rhino. Fewer than 400 Siberian tigers, the world's largest cats, survive in the wild. Some 800 live in captivity. In a dramatic rescue in January, a pair of orphaned Siberian tiger cubs whose mother was probably killed for her body parts was flown thousands of miles from their homeland in the Russian Far East to safety at the Henry Door-l- y Zoo in Omaha, Neb. Although the double-barrele- d weapon of poaching and forest clear-cuttin- g menaces Siberian tigers, experts say poaching is the most immediate danger because of the Oriental medicinal market for tiger parts.. The tigers were relatively safe from this threat before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Subsequent relaxation of travel restric- tions across the border made poaching easier. In folk medicine practiced in China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan, tiger skins, skulls, genitals and even whiskers have healing powers. Tiger bones are pulverized and prescribed for rheumatism. Pulverized bones are also an essential ingredient of "tiger wine," a Chinese export. Sino-Sovi- et EPA wants Ag Dept. research center added to cleanup list By ROBERT GREENE AP Farm Writer life around that." The intangibles can range from the president's relationship with Congress to the influence wielded by a senator. Geography, religion, race and gender also have come into play. And since the angry confronta- tion over Judge Robert Bork's nomination in 1987, potential nominees have faced intense scrutiny of their legal views and personal background. gold or cocaine when sold for Far Eastern elixirs and Yemeni dagger handles. But this rhino was dehorned to save its life. The enormous animal was felled by a wildlife official's tranquilizer rifle for an operation based on the theory that hornless rhinos won't be targets. Only 2,000 black rhinos are left in all of Africa. Several hundred have had their horns officially severed and safely stored away. Some wildlife experts believe that conservation of the planet's megaspecies, such as tigers, elephants and gorillas, demands extraordinary strategies beyond g preserves, parks, zoos, and "frozen programs zoos" of sperm, ova and embryos. This year the Convention on .International Trade in Endan-- ; gered Species (CITES) marks its ;20th anniversary, and the 20-- ; U.S. Endangered Speyear-ol- d cies Act is up for reauthorization. Wildlife worldwide is threatened most by habitat destruction and poaching. The world's few hundred mountain gorillas are also caught in the deadly cross fire of Rwanda's civil war, China's giant panda populations have been decimated in the past ; decade despite multimillion-dollar conservation programs, according to renowned biologist George B. Schaller. ' The World Wildlife Fund has put the black rhino, Siberian tiger, giant panda, and Asiatic black bear on its newest "Ten Most Wanted' ' list of endangered species. The organization warns that wild tigers, which number only about 7,000 globally, could face extinction within 10 years without effective long-terprotection. CITES, whose 120 member nations can ban international commercial trade in endangered species, points to rebounding leopard populations as a major achievement, and to crashing rhino populations as a failure. CITES' controversial 1990 international ban on elephant-ivor- y Being considered for the Supreme Court is a mixture of credentials, connections, speculation and pure luck. In fact, one former Republican White House official said, "If anyone is actually thinking of making (the Supreme Court) a lifetime ambition, I would strongly recommend that they not organize their Center in Beltsville, Md. The facility, which employs more than 1,300 scientists, lies in the densely populated corridor between Baltimore and Washington. As a result, the agency proposed putting the facility on its national priorities or "Superfund" list. Because it is a federal facility, the Agriculture Department rather than the $8.5 billion Superfund would pay for an cleanup. Cleanups usually last more than nine years, although EPA hopes to accelerate the Superfund process EPA-supervis- ed next year. "What we have here is a listing that means a potential exists for problems and that a specialized investigation needs to be done to confirm what is there," said Kim Kaplan, speaking for the Agriculture Department. "There is no imminent threat to human health or the environment on an emergency basis," she said. The Beltsville center "is an old research facility and it's still active. In all the years that it's been active, by customary procedure at the time, stuff has been disposed of over the years." According to the EPA, waste was found in 16 locations on the site. Only one of those locations has been evaluated in detail, said Hank Sokolowski, EPA's chief of the Superfund federal facilities and site assessment branch. Most sites that are proposed for the list remain on it, EPA says. The site is one of 10 federal facilities the agency proposes to add to its list of 23 hazardous sites operated by the federal 1 thing in print when nobody else will talk." His assessment reflects the fact that for the last two months, the same possible candidates, all of them sitting federal judges, have been circulated by the media as the White House keeps a tight lid on its search for a successor to Justice Byron White, who will retire this summer. Although President Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, have taught law and maintain vast connections in legal circles, the president apparently has not yet found a nominee who will "wow" him and the public. "f Clinton reportedly has directed his staff to broaden its search, which opens the door to more .state court judges, particularly women, who in recent years have gainc) seats on state appellate and supreme courts. Conservative critics of the ad ministration have aceu"?ed Clinton of wanting to fashion the judiciar. by quota. But presidents historical ly have slotted theiF. selection of justices. For example, from 1789 until 1932 one seat traditionally was held by a New Englander. Ideology sometimes drives the choice, as when Bush chose Clarence Thomas, a conservative federal appellate judge, in 1991. Partisan politics often drives the search, although President Dwight Eisenhower named Democrat William Brennan of New Jersey in 1956. Although the Constitution does not require Supreme Court justices never to be lawyers, a has sat on the court. non-lawy- er Earlier this century, presidents often picked their nominees from the ranks of politicians and administration officials. But in recent years judges and academics have had better chances. Sitting judges are considered safe choices because their views on issues can be gleaned from their votes and written opinions. Justices don't always behave on the Supreme Court as they did on low- er courts, but that's another story. On the current court, only White and Chief Justice William Rehnqu-is- t came directly from the Justice Department. Justice Sandra Day 0"Connor, selected when President Ronald Reagan wanted to name the first woman justice, came from the Arizona bench but had also served as a state legisla- tor. Powerful friends in Congress, the White House or Justice Department can be critical. For example, Justice David Souter graduated from Harvard Law School, studied at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, worked as New Hampshire attorney general and sat on that state's highest court. But he was little known in Washington until Sen. Warren Rudman. started talking him up as a for the st Circuit. choice good Whether or not a lawyer has ambitions for the court, it is flattering to be considered. "Almost any lawyer who is interested in the court would be honored and delighted to have the opportunity to serve,"' said Starr, who now works in the Washington office of Chicaso-base- d Kirkland 1 & Ellis. Georgetown University law professor William Eskridge said it often takes a "very intense political campaign" by a candidate's friends to keep the individual in contention. "No one gets the Supreme Court in this century unless they really want it," he said. But overly aggressive efforts often backfire. Survey shows consumers turn to store brand foods in 1991, while 36 said so in 1992. To keep within their food budg- By MARY MacVEAN AP Food Writer CHICAGO Twenty-on- e shopping trip per- cent of people surveyed for the supermarket industry say they bought store brands more frequently than they did a year ago. according to research released Monday. Supermarkets faced an increase of only 0.7 percent in the price of food eaten at home last year, compared with 7.3 percent in 1990. as well competition from discount stores, club stores, and a sluggish economy. Store, or private, brands helped both consumers and the industry, Tim Hammonds, the of the Food Marketing Institute, said Monday in a speech at the supermarket industry's annual convention. FMI's annual consumer trends survey, Hammonds said, shows the beginnings of some major shifts in attitudes. Although price is somewhat or very important to 96 percent of consumers surveyed, "the importance of price has stopped climbing," Hammonds said. And while they care very much about nutrition, they are confused about how to eat health fully, he said. The survey, conducted earlier this year, found that in 1992 40 percent of shoppers looked in newspapers for specials, down 5 percent from 1991 . And 41 percent said they used coupons on every new-preside- ets. Hammonds said, consumers are relying more on private brands. He noted that just 1 percent of people surveyed said they bousht private brands less often in 1 1992 than in 1991. "Retailers are improving their inpackaging, developing new and novative products, and demanding higher quality in their p'ivate label." said Brian Sharoff, president of the Private Label Manufacturers Association. Store brand sales were up 2.3 percent in 1992, to $26.4 billion, according to Information Resources Inc.. a Chicago research company. In more than 40 percent of the categories the company tracks, store brands were among the top three sellers. Other findings from the survey: While 82 percent of people surveyed said they were complete- ly or mostly confident in the safety of the food supply in 1991 , only 72 percent said so in 1992 and 73 percent in January 1993. The average sale at supermarkets stayed steady from 1991 to 1992, at $17.90. But, Ham- monds said, the second half of 1992 was better than the first half. Ninety-nin- e percent said they care about the quality of produce and cleanliness when picking a store, followed by variety (97 percent) and low prices (96 percent) |