Show The Herald Journal Logan Utah Monday August 12 2002 — A5 In brief ‘twins follow CainijjoDiniedl Federal safety official balks at calls for public hearing into coal mine SOMERSET Pa (AP) — The miners’ union and the Conner head of a federal mine safety agency say public hearings are needed to determine what caused a flood that trapped nine coal miners underground for more than three days But the current head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration said a public hearing which would give investigators power to subpoena witnesses and documents wouldn’t reveal any more information than the routine investigation already under way into the accident at the Quecreek mine In calling for hearings Joe Main national health and safety administrator for the United Mine Workers of America said the number of US coal miners killed on die job has risen each of the past three years “This year started out worse than last year and we came as close as you can come to another disaster at Quecreek" Main told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Revie- w “It has to raise questions about what’s going on in coal mine safety in this country” Federal statistics show 29 US coal miners were killed in 1998 34 in 1999 38 in 2000 42 in 2001 and 17 so far this year Officials of Black Wolf Mining Co say their workers hit a flooded abandoned mine because maps of the adjoining mine were inaccurate The company says maps of its own mine were accurate noting rescuers used those maps to pinpoint the miners’ location READING Pa (AP) — While the doctors who separated conjoined twins in Los Angeles talk about the little girls' prospects for healthy productive lives another pair of conjoined twins say that's exactly the life they've lived for 40 years The women one a former hospital worker toe other an aspiring country-wester- n singer say the separation isn’t necessary “I don’t think it should be done" Lori Schappell told The Associated Ptess in an interview at the twins’ apartseniors ment in a high-ris- e don’t mess “You complex with what God made even if it means you enjoy both children for a shorter time” Lori and her sister Reba live a life few people can imagine They have two distinct brains but they are joined at toe skull so where one goes the other must Reba who has spina bifida is 4 inches shorter than Lori so her sister wheels her around on an adaptive wheeled stool Both sisters graduated from a public high school and each has taken college classes Reba went along for six years while Lori worked foil- time in a hospital laundry a job she gave up in 1996 so Reba could launch a country-mus- ic ’ Travel industry wants national agency ORLANDO Fla (AP) — The United States is losing tourism dollars by not adequately marketing itself overseas says a top industy official who is pushing for a national tourism agency Setting up a tourism marketing corporation would go a long way in restoring the industry worldwide said William Norman head of the Travel Industry Association in a speech planned for Monday The United States is the only major industrialized nation in the world whose government doesn’t directly spend money on marketing tourism abroad A travel slowdown after the Sept 11 attacks worsened what had already been seen as a softening market worldwide last year The Canadian government spent $67 million last year fin: tourism marketing through the Canadian Tourism Commission The United Kingdom had a tourism promotional budget of $89 million last year and France’s tourism industry used government-matching funds to spend $46 million on marketing Leaders of die United States’ $346 billion tourism industry plan to ask Congress this fall to create a national tourism mar- -' keting corporation Norman said in an advance copy of the speech he plans to give at the Florida Governor’s Conference on Tourism International travel to the United States is a $103 market Two killed in gas tanker crash ORLANDO Fla ( AP) — A gasoline tank truck overturned Sunday and struck a retaining wall on an overpass bursting into ' flame and hurling chunks of Concrete into the path of traffic below the Highway Patrol said Two people were killed and five were injured The heat of the fire damaged the overpass and engineers were concerned that it Was in danger of collapsing said Highway Patrol Lt Eddie Herrell The truck rolled over and struck the retaining wall on a curving toll road onramp that leads onto Interstate 4 ' The two people who were killed were passengers in an SUV that went out of control when the falling chunks of concrete caused drivers to slam on their brakes and swerve Herrell said Concrete debris struck at least one car’s windshield A mile-lon- g stretch of Interstate 4 in both directions was dosed and Herrell said the onramp would remain closed indefinitely Herrell said the driver of the SUV was hospitalized in serious but stable condition and the truck driver was in stable condition Three other motorists suffered minor injuries he said The identities of the victims were not immediately released V Jra ‘ three-quarte- twins Reba left and Lori Schappell are seen Conjoined in their Reading Pa home on Aug 8 Despite the obvious limitations produced by their condition the sisters have hot let it limit their ambitions The sisters graduated from a public high school and each has taken college coursework Reba went along for six years while Lori worked full-tiin a hospital laundry a job she readily gave up in 1996 so Reba could launch a country-musi- c career ld “She has goals in life” said Lori the ambulatory and more assertive twin “The only goal I have is marriage and kids — if it ever happens” Their lives as conjoined twins — and the question of whether to risk potentially surgery — are back in the spotlight with the successful separation Tuesday of the Guata-mala- : policy-make- rs ' - : -- n NOTICE OF PROPOSED TAX INCREASE PURCELL tractor-trail- er oicla(AP)— A carrying a cargo The Cache County School District is proposing to increase its property tax revenue As a result of the proposed increase the tax on a $135000 residence will be $49198 and the tax on a business having the same value as the average value of a residence in the taxing entity will be $89451 Without the proposed increase the tax on a $135000 residence would be $46978 and the tax on a business having the same value as the average value of a residence in the taxing entity would be of peaches slammed into two cars and killed six people including a family of five from Nebraska police' said The truck' traveling north- bound on Interstate 35 hit a sport utility Vehicle carrying the family and then traveled 120 feet farther where it hit a car and killed a female passenger police said The car driver and truck driver were injured in the Saturday accident Road construction had closed one of the two northbound lanes Police said the SUV and the car appeared to have slowed or stopped in the road before the crash Troopers identified the victims in the SUV as Rodney Johnson 33 and Amy John- son 32 of Fremont Neb and their children Alyssa ' $85415 12 The 2002 proposed tax rate is 006626 Without the proposed increase the rate would be 006327 This would be an increase of 473 which is $2220 per year ($185 per month)' on a $135000 residence or $4036 per year on a business having (he saipe value as the average value of a residence in the taxing entity With NEW GROWTH this property tax increase and other factors Cache County School District will increase its property tax jevenue from $9978914 collected last year to $ 1 09 11133 COLLECTED THIS YEAR ' WHICH IS A REVENUE INCREASE bF Sheldon 8 and Mariah 6 The dead car passenger was identified as Peggy Howard 40 of Tishomingo view holds that the Fed would be Inclined to lower interest rates now fof fear that keeping rates steady would dash investors’ hopes and send Wall Street into an even tagger dive ! Morgan Stanley economists Richard Berner and David Greenlaw tofd investors Frir " ' day they were looking for a rate cut charge each otoe? would v reward consutoers and busi-- i Many other nesses with cheaper borrow- -' say the chance of a cut is ing costa in hopes of A v remote After 11 cuts in 2001 the central bank has been constimulating demand : “We’ve tent to leave rates unchanged gone from euphor-ic irrational exuberance id the this year believing them low markets to irrational despair" i' enough to guarantee an ecosaid David Jones chief econonomic recovery V mist at Aubrey Lanston & Co Deciding now to push the ) federal foils rate down from v in New Yark “Greenspan could rationalize that cutting low of 175 percent ' a rates now would be like taung could be misinterpreted as a out an insurance policy for the sign of panic by the Fed these v-- ' economy" analysts believe gered by corpwate accounting scandals could derail toe fledgling economic recovery The Fed’s solution for an ' economy in danger of top-pling into another recession — the feared double-di- p — would be to reduce a key ' interest rate toe federal funds r r rate Quiej Alvarez and Maria Teresa who had been joined at the head “I don’t live every day thinking about the fact I’m a conjoined twin” Lori said twins Maria de Jesus Investors banking on rate cuts look with hope to Greenspan (AP)—' or pelvis The condition occurs when identical twins from a single embryo fail to separate About 70 percent are female Of the approximately 200 pairs of conjoined twins bora alive each year about half die before their first birthday according to Dr Marcelo a pediatric heart surgeon at toe University of Maryland Medical Center who helped separate twin girls from Uganda in April Lori and Reba don’t ask doctors about their life expectancy But they say they know that death may one day separate them When one does die they want doctors to attempt surgery so the other can go on living a procedure that’s never been successful in a case like theirs Car-dare- AP photo Oklahoma road crash sen-fenc- ed WASHINGTON Jjn Six killed in or Could Federal Resene Chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues be petting ready to rescue toq bruised economy and battaedstock market by cutting interest rates? Just toe mere possibility that Fied might redpce already low interest rates at their meeting TUesday was enough to boost stock prices last wedr ' After three days pf triple- -j J: digtt gains in the Dow all major stock indexes ended the week higher for the first time in three months H was a rare ' ' sight for a market that has ' seen $7 trillion of wealth : evaporate since spring 2000 The view among many investors is that the central bank increasingly is worried that the stock market's tr- vails including a swoon trig life” Separation would be a risk for the Schappells who' are attached at the left side of each of their skulls and share bone blood vessels and tissue ' near their brains “The wisdom all along the way has always been that it would be more harmful to try and separate them” said Dr forJohn M Templeton mer pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who has worked with the Schappells and other conjoined twins “I think it would produce brain damage for both of them And it’s just as likely that one or both of them would die" he said The Schappells like the Guatemalan twins are among the 4 percent with the cqodi-tio- n joined at the head Nearly rs are joined at the chest the rest at the abdomen performed in Atlantic City N J Japan and Germany sin- belting out her hoped-fo- r gle “The Fear of Being Alonet” “It’s not autobiographical" Lori insists dancing along as her sister sings to this demo tape f The twins are now considering moving from this city about 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia to Nashville Tenn so Reba can follow that dream “I love it (there) I’m a Southerner” said Reba who changed her name from Don : ' my M ' While Reba doesn’t have a record contract yet she has Man faces death penalty for murder TACOMA Wash (AP) — Robert Lee Yates who has already admitted murdering 13 people is fighting for his life as he goes to trial for two additional killings A final round of jury selection is scheduled Monday in his trial on aggravated murder charges that could bring him toe death penalty Yates 30 has confessed to 13 murders dating to 1975 Ten of women involved in drugs and-the dead were Spokane-are- a The other three were a prostitution who disappeared in 1996-9- 8 couple and a woman killed elsewhere inthe state In exchange for a guilty plea two years ago Yates was to 408 years in prison rather than the death penalty But Pierce County prosecutors refused to sign off on the plea bargain Former prosecutor John Ladenburg was “adamantly opposed” to allowing Yates to bargain away the death penalty Yates has been behind bars ever since awaiting trial for the December 1997 slaying of Melinda Mercer 24 and the September 1998 death of Connie LaFontaine Ellis 35 Yates’ wife and five children have since left toe Spokane area Like the 10 Spokane women killed in the same period Mercer and Ellis were killed with a single gunshot wound to the head Like most of toe Spokane victims their bodies were left in remote areas their heads swaddled in plastic garbage bags “It’s not the biggest thing of W£pPF:RpIppIIIp career ' dlreaunfiis -- This policy-make- rs half-poi- nt Fed-watch- - : 40-ye-ar :''934'' v-- All concerned citizens are invited to a public hearing on the tax increase to held on August '15 2002 '6:30' pm at 2063 N 1200 ENi Logan UT - -- t j- -- - -- -r -- — ! 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