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Show !MONDAY, APRIL 3, 200_0 STATE THOUSANDS FILL NEW LDS HALL: LOS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley and other leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spoke of the church's past and future in the newly constructed Gordon B. Conference Center in Hinckley Salt Lake City Saturday and Sunday. More than 21,000 people gathered in the hall, which was constructed in two and a half years. The $240 million, 1.4 million-square-foot center replaces the venerable Tabernacle on Temple Square as the showcase for semiannual conferences of LOS Church. Hinckley hailed the new complex, with its state-of-the-art broadcast, sound and lighting systems, as ushering in "this historic season, when we mark the birth of a new century and the beginning of a new millennium." ZION'S AND FIRST SECURITY MERGER COLLAPSES: First Security Corporation and Zions Bank announced Saturday that the merger, planned to take effect this summer, is dissolved after Zions Bancorporation's shareholders failed to adopt the Agreement and Plan of Merger. Of the 85,622,272 shares outstanding on the meeting's record date, an affirmative vote of 42 ,811 ,137 shares was required to adopt the agreement. The actual vote was 28,866,703 shares "for" the agreement, 38,691,441 shares · against" the agreement, and 525,375 shares abstaining . FIREFIGHTER DIES IN LAYTON HOME FIRE: A Layton City firefighter died in a blazing Layton home Saturday afternoon-the first such loss since the department was organized in 1928. "I've never worked in a department where they've lost someone," said Layton Fire Chief Allan Peek, a 35-year veteran whose badge now is covered by a black band, a sign of mourning among firefighters and police. "I've never wanted to, either." Kendall 0 . Bryant, 36, died in an upstairs bedroom of a house at 2376 N. 725 West, seconds after Lt. Val King gave the order to clear out of the building. The blaze began in the garage of the tidy brick-and-siding home where a lamp was plugged in near a cardboard box sitting near a dog bed. NATION NEW JERSEY MAYOR INDICTED: The city of Camden, New Jersey's mayor, Milton Milan, was indicted on corruption charges last week. The move is just the latest blow to this alreadyreeling city, a former industrial powerhouse now plagued by poverty and crime. Milan is accused of extorting money from public officials, collecting bribes, stealing campaign funds and laundering drug money. Prosecutors say Milan took mob payoffs of cash, vacations and automobiles. The 37-year-old mayor says he is PAGE9 UNIVERSITY JOURNAL FOCUS: THE WEEK THAT WAS innocent, and calls the indictment a politically motivated prosecution aimed at ousting the city's first Hispanic mayor. "I'm not going to stay down. I'm going to get back up and fight. I'm going to continue to be mayor of this city," Milan said as he emerged from the federal courthouse after being freed on $150,000 bail Thursday. Milan is the second Camden mayor to face criminal charges in the past ten years, which have been filled with troubles for this nine-square-mile city, the fifth poorest in the nation. MICROSOFT SETTLEMENT FAILS: Talks between the federal government and Microsoft broke down Saturday as a judge, trying to mediate a settlement in the antitrust lawsuit against the software giant,· said he was ending his effort. Last week, the judge hearing the case in Washington postponed his ruling to give the two sides more time to talk. Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. appellate court said that since accepting the task, he had tried to find a common ground that might enable the two sides to settle their differences. Gates said the Microsoft mediation team had devoted more than 3,000 hours to the settlement effort over the four months of talks and that the company had offered "significant concessions." But Gates reiterated that he believes the company has a strong legal case and dismissed suggestions that the breakdown of talks represented a "corporate death penalty" for Microsoft. In Washington, Joel I. Klein, the assistant attorney general•in charge of the Justice Department antitrust division, said in a statement: "We would have preferred an effective settlement to continued litigation. But settlement for settlement's sake would be pointless." HUNDREDS PROTEST CONFEDERATE FLAG: More than 600 people set out yesterday in Charleston, South Carolina, on a fivetlay, 120-mife protest march to Columbia to urge state lawmakers to move the Confederate Flag from the Statehouse dome. "Take it down!," chanted some marchers. The marchers will walk only during daylight hours and plan to arrive in Columbia for a rally on Thursday, when pro-flag supporters have also scheduled a Statehouse rally. The national Association for the Advancement of Colored People has called for a tourism boycott of the state, saying the Confederate flag above the Statehouse in Columbia is a racist emblem. Flag defenders say it is a symbol of Southern heritage and honors the Confederate war dead. WORLD :::a;Jll!!D! POLICE-RELEASE TEARGAS ON RI OT: Zimbabwean riot police fired teargas Saturday to break up violent clashes between thousands of anti-government demonstrators and supporters of President Robert Mugabe, witnesses said. Two people were badly hurt during the confrontation in the capital, which broke out when veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s independence war ambushed marching protestors, who included elderly white couples and families walking hand-inhand. The injured demonstrators collapsed, . one with a huge gash in his head, during the clashes with war veterans weilding rocks, clubs and sticks, witnesses said. The crowd on up to 10,000 people scattered after police moved in and sealed off the area.. PERU PRIME MINISTER LOSES PATIENCE WITH U .S. ELECTIONS: Prime Minister Alberto Bustamante warned that Peru "has about run out of patience" with international pressure after a group of U.S. senators threatened sanctions against the country if it fails to provide fair presidential elections on April 9. U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell introduced a bipartisan congressional resolution Wednesday advising President Alberto Fujimori that the United States will · "modify its political and economic relations with Peru" if international observers continue to find fault with his third-term re-election bid. International election observers "will sufficiently guarantee the development of a transparent and clean electoral process," he said. "That will shut the mouths of misinformed representatives of the American government." QUEEN'S PYRAMID DISCOVERED: French archaeologists have discovered the remains of a 4,000year-old queen's pyramid south of Cairo, complete with texts of special prayers previously found only with kings. The finding was one of several announced at the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists, a weeklong conference that ends Monday and has drawn some 1,500 archaeologists to Cairo. The French team, led by Jean Leclant, uncovered the foundation stones March 25 in Sakkara, an ancient royal cemetery about 20 miles south of Cairo. The . pyramid belonged to Queen Ankh-snPepi, the wife of King Pepi I. UGANDANS MOURN MASS MURDER DEATHS: Thousands of townspeople gathered on a hilltop soccer field in Kanungu, Uganda, yesterday to m9urn the mass murder of neighbors they barely knew. Oignitarites joined residents of Kanungu and nearby villages to deplore the deaths of 924 members of a reclusive Christian doomsday sect who authorities say were murdered by their leaders. Ugandan Vice President Speciosa Zasibwe called the architects of the deadliest cult tragedy in modern history "diabolic, malevolent criminals masquerading as holy and religious people." A March 17 blaze inside the chapel of the sect's secretive compound in Kanangu burned 530 sect members alive. Authorities initially termed the deaths as a mass suicide, but the discovery of the bodies of six slain men in a compound latrine soon shifted that assessment to murder. SPORTS UCONNWOMEN TOP TENNESSEE: The Huskies of Connecticut routed the Tennessee Lady Vols in last night's NCAA women's basketball championship game 71-52. FLORIDA, MICHIGAN STATE MEET TONIGHT FOR MEN'S CROWN: The Florida Gators bounced obstacles and claimed a 71-59 victory over North Carolina on Saturday, pairing them with Michigan State for the men's NCAA tournament's championship game tonight. The Spartans reached the finals by stifling Wisconsin 53-41 Saturday. TWO MORE AMERICAN BOXERS QUALIFY FOR OLYMPICS: Michael Bennett and Calvin Brock have taken different roads to Sydney. Bennett is a heavyweight who took up boxing while serving time for armed robbery and Brock is a super heavyweight who is a banker. Both won finals Saturday to become · the eighth and ninth U.S. Boxers to qualify for the 2000 Olympics. Only competitors in the two top weight classes had to win finals to qualify in the Americas qualifying tournament. SHAQ, LAKERS DOWN KNICKS: The Knicks-Lakers yesterday game got downright nasty. and it wasn't just because Shaquille O'Neal beat up on Patrick Ewing again. An altercation between Kobe Bryant and Chris Childs detracted from anotherdominarit performance by O'Neal, who scored 24 of his 34 points in the first half as Los Angeles took command in rolling to a 106-82 victory over New York. The win was the ninthstraight and 28th in 29 games for the Lakers (62-12). LEISURE MOORE TO RETURN TO TV: Mary Tyler Moore is eyeing a full-time return to TV, but not with a revival of her '70s hit The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Her role in Good as Gold, a sitcom to air Mary Tyler Moore on CBS, will be the mother of a star and executive producer Elon Gold, who based the comedy on his own experiences. The Gold connection was struck when he co-starred as Moore's boss in Mary and Rhoda, where Moore revisited her career-woman character with the ABC TV movie. SURVlVING BEATLES TO PUBLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Thirty years after the breakup of the Beatles, the surv,iving members are writing a book with more than 1,000 photos of the group's extraordinary long and winding road. Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Rihgo Starr have spent six years writing the 360-page memoir and the three collected more than 1,200 photos. The book is to be published in Great Britain and the United States this autumn and will cost about $80. '. |
