News Digest By The Associated Press
Fire survivors tell harrovAng stories
while subway investigation begins
LONDON — Andrew Lea got
off a subway train in King’s Cross
station on Wednesday night and
saw “a large orange glow” at the
top of the escalator he planned to
take out of the complex.
Ashe took another ex it, “a sheet
of flames shot across the top of that
escalator that I was on, and very
soon the ceiling was on fire and
debris started falling down.”
Lea was among the survivors of
the blaze who told harrowing sto
ries of people on fire and of being
carried on an escalator into the
flames.
People collapsed from smoke
and many pounded helplessly on
windows of passing trains in
search of an escape from Britain’s
worst subway fire.
The government on Thursday
announced a public inquiry into a
sudden and quick-spreading fire
that raged through London’s larg
est subway station, killing 30
people and injuring about 80 oth
ers.
Michelle Miklos/Daily Nebraskan
rire olhcials said they could
not explain how a small fire could
spread so quickly. Investigators
descended into thecavemous, fire
ravaged ticketing plaza of the
multi-tiered station to search for
clues. They said they were certain
the fire broke out on one of the
escalators, not beneath it as was
previously thought.
But they added that they had no
idea what caused it.
Budget ax law ready
Bargainers say they're near agreement
WASHINGTON — Bargainers
from the White House and Congress
said Thursday they were closer to
agreement on a deficit-reduction plan,
but divisions in Republican ranks
imperiled efforts to avoid Gramm
Rudman budget cuts today.
President Reagan pushed for the
negotiators to settle on a package of
deficit cuts. Some Republicans, how
ever, said they’d just as soon see the
widespread automatic sliding begin as
required by theGramm-Rudman defi
cit-reduction law.
“While the final package may not
be all that I might want, it will not be
all that Congress wants cither,” Re
agan told the U.S. Chamber of Com
merce. “But it is vital that the negotia
tors complete their work now.”
TheGramm-Rudman law requires
$23 billion in deficit reduction in fis
cal 1988, which began Oct. 1. By the
end of the day, Reagan must order
such a cut in federal spending, half
from domestic programs and half
from the military.
Even if an agreement is reached by
White House and congressional nego
tiators on a dcficit-rcduction package
to avoid the automatic slicing under
the Gramm-Rudman law, enacting
such a program might take weeks.
The immediate Gramm-Rudman
cuts could be avoided, however, if
Congress passes and the president
signs a delay.
On Thursday, the House Rules
Committee, at the urging of House
Speaker Jim Wright, D-Tcxas, ap
proved a resolution to delay the cuts
until Dec. 16. But lawmakers from
both sides of the aisle said it will not
pass on today unless there was an
agreement in the talks.
The bargainers still were working
on a plan to cut the deficit $75 billion
over two years. It would raise about $9
billion in taxes this year and impose
selective spending cuts instead of the
arbitrary one of Gramm-Rudman.
“We’re close on the numbers,” said
Rep. Trent Lott, R-Miss. He said out
standing issues included how to guar
antee the spending cuts would be
enacted and the composition of the
new taxes included in the proposal.
Report: NSC start intertered with 7 probes
WASHINGTON — National security aides
John Poindexter and Oliver North interfered
with seven criminal investigations when the
probes threatened to expose the Reagan
administration’s private Contra resupply op
eration, thecongressional Iran-Contracommit
tees say.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Edwin Meese
III, the target of strong criticism in the panel’s
690-page report, described the study on Thurs
day as “a great job of Monday mom ing quarter
backing.”
“There wasn’t anything particularly new,”
Meese said of the report, which said he failed to
keep records and neglected to seal North’s
office during a weekend inquiry last November
that uncovered diversion of funds from the
secret sale of arms to Iran to the Contra rebels
in Nicaragua.
North continued to shred documents
throughout the weekend inquiry.
The report, released Wednesday, also con
cluded that Meese probably approved the use of
private funds for a failed 1985-86 ransom
operation for U.S. hostages in Lebanon bank
rolled by Texas industrialist H. Ross Perot.
Defending his performance during the in
quiry a year ago, Meese said “it looks a lot
different when you are on the scene.” He de
dined to discuss the ransom operation.
Asked whether he might resign, Mecse
replied: “That’s silly.”
The Iran-Contra report provides some new
details of efforts in 1985 and 1986 by Poindex
ter, a former national security adviser to Presi
dent Reagan, and fi red Nationa I Sec uri ty Cou n -
cil staffer North to monitor and, in some in
stances, impede criminal investigations.
1 WA contirms two incidents
of faulty plane oxygen masks
ST. LOUIS — TWA has con
firmed two weekend incidents in
which oxygen masks failed to drop to
passengers on planes that had lost
cabin pressure, including one ease in
which the masks supplied no oxygen.
The first failure occurred Friday on
a TWA Ilight from St. Louis to Hous
ton that had 26 passengers, according
to Donald Morrison, TWA vice presi
dent for public affairs.
Some passengers had to pull their
oxygen masks down when they failed
to release, and then they found that no
oxygen was available.
Morrison said the pilot continued
the night to Houston after descending
to an altitude with higher atmospheric
Correction
Thursday’s articles on AS UN and
the University of Nebraska Board of
Regents said College of Engineering
students could experience a S20 sur
charge on their tuition, if approved by
the Regents. Those articles should
have read, a 20 percent surcharge, or
$9 per credit hour. Also the headline
on the Regents story was incorrect.
The Regents will vote on the sur
charge this morning.
Netirc&kan
Editor Mike Reilley
Managing Editor Jen Deselms
General Manager Daniel Shattii
Production Manager Katherine Policky
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pressure.
The same type of failure occurred
Sunday when a TWA plane lost pres
sure on a flight from Austin, Texas, to
St. L ouis. But the pilot of that plane
elected to make an unscheduled stop
in Springlield, Mo., and passengers
were picked up by a replacement
plane and taken to St. Louis.
Morrison said both planes had been
returned to service after installation of
replacement parts. There w-as no ques
tion the problems were isolated, he
said.
‘Loss of cabin pressure is not a
common situation, but it occurs every
once in a while,” Morrison said. “The
pilot was following normal proce
dure. ”
Irish Protestant
politician shot
BELFAST, Northern Ireland— A
leading Protestant politician who
once recommended burning Roman
Catholics was shot in the head Thurs
day as he got out of a car, police said.
George Scawright, an elected city
councilor, was admitted to Mater
Hospital in critical condition with two
bullet wounds in the head, authorities
said.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary
said Scawright was shot by “terror
ists,” but there was no immediate
claim of responsibility.
The Scottish-born Scawright is a
member of the Democratic Unionists,
led by the militant Rev. Ian Paisley.
The party opposes any concessions by
Protestants to the Catholic minority in
the British province.
Scawright, 35, was shot as he got
out of car at a supermarket on Dundee
Road, in the Protestant Shankill dis
trict, a police statement said.
Scawright gained notoriety in 1984
when he declared to a Belfast council
meeting that the city should buy an
incinerator and burn all Catholics in it. i
Scawright’s incinerator remark
was too harsh even for his party. He
was expelled and fined $120 for in- :
citemcnt and spent 15 days in prison j
Soviets provide limited missile data \
WASHINGTON — The Soviet
Union has provided the United
States with detailed information
about us medium-range missile
arsenal in another step toward
completion of a treaty to be signed
at the December summit, Reagan
administration officials said
Thursday.
But the information turned over
Wednesday to U.S. negotiators m
Geneva dealt mostly with de
ployed missiles and did not in
clude all the specific data the U.S.
side warns on SS-20s and SS-4s
that might be in storage and where
they arc being kept, the officials
said.
In the meantime, there were
growing indications that Secretary
of State George P. Shultz would go
to Geneva next week to meet with
Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A.
Shevardnadze on a summit
agenda
The mam purpose, if Shultz
decides to go, is to discuss regional
problems, and not the prospective
arms control treaty, said a U.S.
official who demanded anonym
ity.
The United Suites has been
seeking Soviet support to impose a
worldwide arms embargo on Iran
and for a commitment to withdraw'
the Red Army from Afghanistan.
The two governments also have
been discussing prospects for
Arab-Isracli peace talks.
Charles E. Redman, the State
Department spokesman, declined
to repeal the statement he has been
making for days that Shull/, had no
plans for another meeting with
Shevardnadze. While that is still
“technically” correct, Redman
said, “right now we arc in a posi
tion of stock-taking.”
All 553 SS-20 and SS-4 mis
siles the Soviets have deployed
would be scrapped under the
treaty. The Soviets also would
dismantle 130 shorter-rangc rock
ets, while the United Slates would
eliminate 364 missiles that were
installed in West Germany, Brit
ain, Italy and Belgium.
John Bruce/Daily Nebraskan
until an anonymous sympathizer paid
the fine.
Despite having no party base, he
won a landslide victory in the 1985
Municipal election, running in the
icavily Protestant and blue-collar
Shankill district.
Scawright was the second Belfast
;ouncilor to be shot this year. In May,
\lex Maskcy of the Irish Republican
\rmy’s political wing Sinn Fein was
;hol in the stomach by a Protestant
gunman.
Scientists pinpoint link
to common cold miseries
/"MI A r»V m • . . .. ..
x « I/AIXL.W I I V ILLC, va. -
Inllammatory substance found in
nasal secretions may be responsible
lor the miseries of the common cold,
according to researchers at the Uni
versity of Virginia and Johns Hopkins
University.
Dr. Jack M. Gwaltncy, professor of
internal medicine at Virginia, said the
substances, known as kinins, were
found in substantially higher levels in
people infected with the major family
of cold viruses, rhinoviruses, than in
people who arc free of the viruses or
who carry them without showing
symptoms.
“What our studies to date have
shown is an association between when
kinins arc elevated and when a person
is sick,” he said.
Gwaltncy said the researchers
“believe rhinovirus infections may
trigger the release of these kinins. The
kinins in turn cause blood vessels to
dilate, allowing plasma to leak out and
stimulate pain in the nerve endings
and glandular secretions.”
There may be other substances not
yet documented that arc involved in
the chain of events, and additional
studies wim kinin-blocking drugs will
be necessary to test whether stopping
kinins will stop cold symptoms, he
said.
Research at Johns Hopkins in Bal
timore showed that volunteers who
did not have colds developed cold
like symptoms when they were given
kinins. Researchers also found that
cold symptoms sufferers have only
one type of inflammatory substance,
kinins, while allergy sufferers have a
whole array, including histamine and
prostaglandin.
Earlier studies have shown that
what is called the common cold is
caused by as many as 300 viruses,
which makes development of an ef
fective vaccine difficult.
In 1986, University of Virginia
doctors found that volunteers exposed
to rhinoviruscs failed to develop colds
if they were administered a nasal
spray containing the hormone inter
feron. Using the spray for a week,
however, irritated the nose about as
much as a cold does.
Until further studies can find an
effective prevention or cure,
Uwaltncy urged cold sufferers to treat
the individual symptoms.