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Show A SXsl ; The Daily Herald Thursday, October 10, Fatal accidents increase in 1 995 WASHINGTON (AP) A private safety group says deadly accidents increased last year for the third straight year, led by the first rise in drunken driving deaths in a decade. accidental Overall, deaths including car crashes, poisonings, and falls, fires drownings increased io 93,300 in 1995, the National Safety Council said Wednesday. That's up 2 percent from 91,400 in 1994. The 4 percent rise in alcohol-relate- d traffic deaths, to 17,274 in 1995, was first reported in July by the government. if I Metric Day likely to pass without much fanfare move to metric. In trade and business, the change is zipping along: Think of 35 millimeter film or soft drinks sold in I - and bottles. But in cultural areas, like displaying temperatures or speed limits: "We've gotten nowhere." said Gerard Iannelli of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, whose job it is to assess such things. Technically, the United States does use the metric system: It's been the nation's official system since 1893. The pound and foot and so forth legally are defined merely as fractions of the official kilogram and meter. the Today is even national Metric Day 10th day of the 10th month. But most Americans prefer to ignore the official system in favor of weights and mea By RANDOLPH E. SCHMIO Associated Press Writer er WASHINGTON Whatever happened to the U.S. metric system? Virtually every nation measures the universe in meters and grams, but Americans still love their feet, pounds and ounces. That despite the fact that metric was adopted as the official U.S. system of measurement more than 100 years ago. States have tried posting highway speed limits in kilometers per hour. We didn't like it. Someone tried to get service stations to dispense liters of gasoline. Sorry, we'll keep our gallons. Water freezes at zero degrees Celsius? Forget it. Yet, there has been some progress in the sures that are relics of w hen this was a British colony. Somehow, inch and foot and mile seem to trip easily off the American tongue, which stumbles over liter, meter and gram. In terms of the family of nations, America's only kin on the metric issue are Liberia and Burma. Periodically, educators or bureaucrats or reformers try to nudge the nation along the metric path, normally with little success. The 1975 Metric Conversion Act required federal agencies to use the system whenever possible in business activities, though exemptions have been granted. "I think what happened in the 1970s effort was they tried to change everything at once and had tremendous cultural resistance to changing things that deal with everyday life and traditions," Iannelli said. seems to be Today, economic slowly working. Change often passes unnoticed. Anyone who reads nutrition labels cona metric measure templates milligrams daily. Soft drinks are routinely sold in containers. Wine and liquor bottles long ago were changed to metric sizes. And cars and other products seeking to compete overseas generally are made to metric specifications. Yet metric has failed to take hold in what Iannelli calls "cultural areas, where we have an ingrained culture, tradition, habit." Meat and potato salad, for example, still are sold by the pound, and other items by the bushel or the dozen. stepping down : WASHINGTON (AP) Jack Ward Thomas, the only wildlife biologist ever to head the U.S. suspects arrested Forest Service, says he's retiring to take a teaching job at the University of Montana. He faced criticism from both and timber environmentalists industry leaders as he administered President Clinton's logging policies, dropping national forest their 1980s harvests to By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS Associated Press Writer SPOKANE. levels. Thomas said no politics were involved in his decision to retire in November. "I'm 62 years old with 40 years service. I'm going to do something else," Thomas said in an interview Wednesday night. LOS ANGELES (AP) Three f men were taken into custody and I questioned about the more than f inn i i .u. Uldl nuvc iW terrorized motorists along southern California freeways. A tip from a California Highway Patrol hotline led officers to stop a' car Wednesday evening and detain three occupants, CHP Officer". Rob Lund said. The men, including two paroled convicts, remained in custody today. The men were not immediately t charged. Authorities did not say I where they were taken into custody. . A state official who requested anonymity said CHP officers raided a Los Angeles home Wednesday night and seized slingshots i and BB guns "that would seem to implicate the people stopped by officers. WlllUUW-MldUCllll- 138 C Powell retracts racial comment STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) Retired Gen. Colin Powell apologized for using an ethnic slur against Chinese in a speech last weekend. about affirmative . Speaking action and the global economy Saturday before a Business Leadership Summit, Powell was quoted as saying: "If you give 1.3 billion Chinamen access to home shopping on television, (communism) is over, because there is no way communism can compete with a Salad Shooter for $9.95." In a letter Wednesday to the Organization of Chinese Americans Inc. and the Japanese American Citizens League, Powell said his use of the word "Chinamen" was inappropriate and he would never use it again. Cigarette ads reduced in 1994 1 The WASHINGTON (AP) billion $1.2 cigarette industry spent less on advertising and promotions in 1994 than in the previous year, the first drop in the industry s massive marketing budget since 1986. Cigarette makers spent $4.83 billion in 1994, down almost 20 percent from $6.03 billion the previous year, the Federal Trade Commission reported Wednesday. Most of the drop came from promotions that directly hit consumers' wallets: coupons, multiple-pac- k discounts and other Tvalue-adde- d promotions." Cigarette makers cut in half spending on such promotions, to $1.25 billion, high of down from an said FTC the in 1993, billion $2.56 in its annual report to Congress. free ; Americans also got fewer That 1994. in cigarette samples snpnrlino dronned to iust $7 mil- llion in 1994, down from $40 mil lion the previous year. all-ti- Wash. Three men with links to white supremacist groups were charged with rob- one-four- th iRoad mayhem suspects neia self-intere- st poKane bombing USFS chief V 1996- - sL 1 AP Photo Fishing in the fog A fisherman, who declined to give his name, the time under the partially passes Golden Gate bridge obscured, fogged-i- n Wednesday, temperatures in the city took more than a plunge Wednesday, allowing the fog to roll in. Flooding of canyons may be repeated heat at the Desert Botanical Gardens. The regulations restrict a power cooperative's ability to send wildly fluctuating amounts of water through Glen Canyon Dam. Hailed by environmental groups, it follows six years of research into the environmental changes caused by the dam since it began oper- By JEFF SHAIN Associated Press Writer 102-degr- Last spring's manmade flood PHOENIX through the Grand Canyon was such a success that areas below other major dams may be in for artificial deluges in the future. In a move expected to set the standard for future dams across the country, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed new regulations Wednesday putting environmental concerns over power needs in managing the Colorado River's flow through the Grand Canyon. "This shows it is possible to find a better, more reasjnable balance between the environment and the needs of power supply," Babbitt said as he sweated through ceremonies held in ating in 1963. "We finally have a solution that serves the river as well as human needs and the flexibility e to that solution into the future," said Pamela Hyde, southwest director of American Rivers, a group that campaigns to protect waterways. The Grand Canyon studies, including a man- made flood last March, concluded that the fine-tun- canyon's ecosystem had been choked by three decades of extreme fluctuations in water releases from the dam, along with the absence of natural flooding. The artificial flood returned nutrient-ric- h sediment to the river, reviving old beaches and restoring habitats for endangered fish. Under the new regulations, the dam will probably release a major deluge every seven to 10 years to mimic the floods once caused by melting snow in Colorado's mountains. Smaller floods are recommended every spring. The Grand Canyon research is likely to serve as a model for other plans. Babbitt said similar studies already are being conducted along the Platte River in Nebraska. Medical panel says no link exists between Gulf War service, illness WASHINGTON (AP) A Even as it acknowledges the posdemonstrating that these sympat a higher toms occurred prestigious panel of private medsibility of some exposure, however, rate...than among veterans who did ical experts says there is no evithe Pentagon is nowhere near ready not serve in the Gulf or that these dence to link service in the Persian to link exposure to chemGulf War with a group of ailments ical weapons to a specific illness. symptoms could be linked to spethat have come to be known as The Institute of Medicine said cific medical diagnoses or expoGulf War syndrome. in its report Wednesday that a sures," it said. However, the committee said The committee of 18 scientists, review of various studies among the military needs and physicians to improve the way epidemiologists it keeps medical convened by the "Although were outbreak records to make institute of Medi- a common jn such ot arm an researching cine, of perceived health problems matters easier and National the that it "recogni.es Academy of Sci- a of military units deployed that studies providits issued ences, were to in Gulf, ed thus far do not final report comprise a compreWednesday. Its core findhensive scientific a rate..." that there ing investigation of the is no firm eviconse- health ii id mine ui ivieuiuiic dence of a link quences of (Gulf) between possible service." chemical expoIn a statement sure in the Persian Gulf region and clusters of veterans who reported accompanying the report, John resulting illness to military personsimilar symptoms of joint pain and Bailar, chairman of the department nel who served there echoes the stiffness, fatigue and mood disorof health studies at the University findings of a number of other govders, gastrointestinal problems and of Chicago as w ell as chairman of ernment studies. sleeplessness showed they were no the advisory committee, said. e However, the report more prone to such ailments than "The recent confirmation that at comes at a time when increasing other members of the military. least some American troops were attention is being paid to governexposed to chemical weapons "Although these outbreak studment revelations that more troops ies were successful in demonstratheightens our obligation to solthan originally believed could ing a common pattern of perceived diers and their families to provide have been exposed to traces of nealth problems across a range of investigators with an atmosphere nerve gas after the destruction of military units deployed to the Gulf, most to conducive proper in successful not were research." Iraqi chemical weapons. they low-lev- studies demonstrating successfu pattern across range not successful the they demonstrating that these symptoms occurred at higher icpuu day. Critics urge shutdown of 25 nuclear reactors By ANICK JESDANUN Associated Press Writer el these 140-pag- dam-operati- bing banks and setting off pipe bombs at a newspaper office and an abortion clinic as diversions. "Yahweh is my defense," defendant Jay Merrell told U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrog-n- o on Wednesday as the men were charged. "I'll ask for nothing from the state," Merrell added, saying he would not seek bail. "Yahweh," an English rendering of the Hebrew name for God, is a term frequently used in the white separatist Christian Identity religion. Merrell. Charles Barbee, 44, and Robert Berry, 42, all from the Sandpoint, Idaho, area, were each charged with nine counts of bank robbery, auto theft and use of bombs to rob a bank. Berry also was charged with being a felon in possession of a gun. If convicted, they could face life in prison without parole. Authorities charged the men with robbing the same Spokane Valley branch of U.S. Bank in April and July, and with blowing up three bombs shortly before the holdups. No one was injured in the bombings. The robberies netted $108,666, documents showed. The Spokane attacks prompted businesses to tighten security. Residents speculated on when the robbers would strike next in the community 280 miles east of Seattle, near the Idaho border. "We felt our community was under siege and waiting for the next event," Spokane County said Sheriff John Goldman Wednesday. "It was a common fear shared by many." A bail hearing was set for Tues- WASHINGTON Nearly of the nation's 110 nuclear power reactors are economic and safety "lemons" and should be shut down permanently, a Ralph Nader consumer advocacy group says. In a report Wednesday, the Critical Mass Energy Project, an arm of Nader's Public Citizen organization, listed 25 reactors it deemed disasters waiting to happen. Bill Magavern, the group's director, said nuclear utilities heading into an era of greater competition and less regulation "will be tempted to shortchange safety in their efforts to cut costs." He urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to boost its oversight. NRC spokesman William Beecher said all nuclear plants currently operating are safe, and he accused Public Citizen of engaging in scare tactics that "alarm the public unnecessarily." "The NRC would not allow a dangerous plant to remain on line," he said. "If we feel that a one-four- th plant is dangerous, we make sure they are not operating." Public Citizen's rankings were based on safety violations, employees' exposure to radiation, emergency shutdowns, operating costs and other 1993-9- 5 government and industry data. Topping the list was Salem Unit in southern New Jersey. Maintenance problems have kept that reactor and Salem Unit 2, which ranked eighth, out of service since spring 1995. The beleaguered pair have been shut down 22 times in the past three years. Public Service Electric & Gas Co., which operates the two Salem reactors, acknowledged problems with performance. But spokesman Neil Brown said public health and safety have not been jeopardized. Other reactors the Public Citizen project considers the five most dangerous in the are Washington country Nuclear Unit 2. Washington state; Millstone Unit 2, Connecticut; River Bend Unit 1, Louisiana; and Dresden Unit 3, Illinois. 1 |