News Digest
PAGE 2FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25,1996
Police shooting starts riots
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) —
A rock and bottle-throwing crowd of
hundreds of people set fire to busi
nesses and vehicles after police fatally
shot a man during a traffic stop Thurs
day evening.
Several officers were injured in the
riot, which involved more than 200
people. One of the vehicles set on fire
was a television news truck.
“It’s just utter chaos,” said a police
dispatcher who refused to be identified.
“We have officers injured, quite a few
of them.”
The shooting happened in a pre
dominantly black neighborhood of
south St. Petersburg. Two officers had
stopped a car with two people inside
about 5:30 pjn., Tampa television sta
tion WTVT reported.
The car lurched forward, hitting one
officer. The other officers opened fire,
striking the driver of the car, the sta
tion reported.
The man died before reaching
Bayfront Medical Center, a hospital
spokesman said.
Firefighters were reportedly unable
to reach at least two separate fires be
cause of the threat to their safety.
ClintoiL Dole swing down South
Candidates hold rival rallies just miles apart in Republican-based state
LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) -
Shadowboxing in the South, Presiden
Clinton said Thursday his difference:
with Bob Dole don’t involve labels oi
who is “a good person or a bad per
son,” but what’s right and wrong foi
America.
Clinton said his record proves h<
has the right answers.
“Even though our friends on th(
other side don’t like to admit it, we are
better off than we were four years ago,’
Clinton said in Birmingham, Ala., i
state with a Republican pattern in presi
dential politics.
He drew a crowd that overflowec
the sunny quadrangle at Birmingham'
Southern College. “Maybe Alabama is
going to come along with me,” he saic
as he surveyed the turnout.
Dole campaigned at the Alabama
capital in Montgomery, trying to pre
serve what the polls indicate is a nar
row GOP lead.
I-1
Later, both he and Clinton were
: holding rival rallies in Louisiana, the
i president from an industrial park al
■ Lake Charles and Dole from the hear!
. of New Orleans.
“Shadowboxing,” White House
press secretary Michael McCurry said
: summing up die campaign day.
Clinton, who shuns direct replies tc
: Dole’s assaults on his integrity and eth
: ics, said the Nov. 5 election choice is
’ “not a question of who’s good and bad,
i It’s a question of what’s right and
wrong for our people.”
Retiring Sen. Howell Heflin took
on the character rebuttal for Clinton.
He accused the Republicans of con
i cocted libel and vicious slander, but
said that in the final phase of the cam
paign, they are issuing “the groans of
anticipated defeat....”
Campaign press secretary Joe
Lockhart said the Alabama polls show
Dole with a lead of 4 or 5 percentage
points, and Clinton’s first presidential
visit there was an effort “to try to steal
the state.”
Clinton also is targeting other states
in the South, once considered gener
ally safe territory for a GOP ticket. He
was in Florida on Wednesday and plans
to return. He campaigns in Georgia on
Friday, with Tfexas and Arizona among
other likely stops in the final days of
the campaign.
“It’s a sign that we’re doing well in
traditionally Republican areas and Bob
Dole is having to defend traditionally
Republican areas,” Lockhart said.
In conservative country, Clinton
recited his proposals on matters like
school uniforms, youth curfews, drug
testing for driver’s licenses for teen
agers. He said they are local initiatives
that can have a national impact in mak
ing schools and children safer.
Perot declines Dole’s offer
U.S. astronaut hopes
to vote in orbit aboard
Russian space station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
(AP)—NASA is scrambling to
get a ballot up to the Russian
space station for U.S. astronaut
John Blaha, who won’t be back
on the planet until after Inaugu
ration Day.
The 54-year-old Texan, who
arrived at Mir on Sept. 18,
missed the opportunity to regis
ter for an absentee ballot for the
presidential election because he
was training in Russia, said
NASA spokesman Rob Navias.
NASA is working with local,
state and federal voting officials
in an attempt to e-mail a ballot
to Blaha from Texas by way of
Moscow. His response would
come back the same way and
would be encrypted to ensure a
secret ballot.
But it’s still up in the air as to
whether everything can be
worked out by Nov. 5, said
Phyllis Taylor, director of fed
eral voting assistance.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to
vote, but I’ll tell you this... Presi
dent Clinton has date a great job
in the past four years,” Blaha ,
said Thursday in a space-to
ground news conference. “I
didn’t vote for him four years
ago, but I think he’s done a great
job and I’m all for him.
“I also think Bob Dole did a
great job in the U.S. Senate. So
both men are doing very well,
and I hope we’ll keep the spirit
of everybody together and work
to try arid improve America.”
Blaha, the replacement cm
Mir for record-setting astronaut
Shannon Lucid, is supposed to
return to Earth in late January on
space shuttle Atlantis.
Lucid, meanwhile, told re
porters Thursday she has read
justed well to gravity following
- her record six-month mission
and is glad to be back in the of
fice. She has had her fill of junk,
food; she gorged on the stuff
during her first week or so back.
Reform Party
candidate saysltell
keep fighting “to the
bitter end” in the cam
paign.
WASHINGTON (AP)—Suddenly
handed the campaign spotlight, Ross
Perot on Thursday rejected Bob Dole’s
entreaty to quit the presidential race
and said he was in “to the bitter end.’
Republicans and Democrats labeled
Dole’s move a desperate gambit.
Perot told repaters he would not
discuss details of his Wednesday meet
ing with Dole campaign manager Scott
Reed, calling the session “weird and
totally inconsequential.”
Perot, in Washington fa a National
Press Club speech, delivered a scath
ing indictment of President Clinton’s
ethics and said Dole and the Republi
cans also had abused the campaign fi
nance system and traded favors for
contributions.
I
“If you want this corruption
stopped, vote for the Reform Party in
1996,” Perot .said. Later, he added^
“Am f in this for theTonghaul?YesL
Do I intend to campaign fio the bitter
end? Yes.”
Dole authorized Reed’s overture to
Perot after a week of internal campaign
debate over whether there was any way
to shake Clinton’s lead in national and
critical state polls. But the GOP nomi
nee was described by aides as furious
that word had leaked of what was sup
posed to be a secret mission.
“A drowning man will grab onto
any log,” said Texas Reform Party di
rector Bill Walker. White House press
secretary Mike McCurry, asked the
administration’s reaction, responded,
“Mystification.”
Campaigning in Florida, Dole ad
mitted he was frustrated by the polls
and said testily: “Wake up America!
You’re about to do yourselves an in
justice if you vote for Bill Clinton....
If you want to see this country go down
the hill in the next four years, you vote
for Bill Clinton.”
Israelis mourn Rabin
(Hie year alter death
JERUSALEM (AP) — Mourn
ing the leader who had brought
peace within reach, Israelis wept
and prayed Thursday for Yitzhak
Rabin, marking a year since his as
sassination by a Jewish extremist.
“We are still swimming in a sea
of confusion ... looking for a way
out,” Rabin’s grandson said. “Our
world has changed. We are no
longer the same family, the same
people.”
In the Tel Aviv square where
Rabin was gunned down, thousands
lit memorial candles and placed
flowers on the pavement. Some
embraced. Others hummed “To cry
for you,” a ballad that has become
an anthem of lost hope, especially
for younger Israelis.
“Friend, we miss you,” read a
banner headline in the Yediot
Ahronot newspaper.
The prime minister’s assassina
tion occurred Nov. 4, but accord
ing to the Hebrew calendar, die an
niversary falls Thursday.
The sorrow briefly covered up
the poisonous divisions in Israel that
have deepened since the assassina
tion. But even Thursday’s somber
ceremonies were not entirely with
out rancor.
Pointing an accusing finger,
Rabin’s son Yuval said hard-line
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu must accept some of the
blame for creating the hate-filled
political climate that led to Rabin’s
murder.
Assassin Yigal Amir says he
shot Rabin to prevent him from trad
ing land God promised the Jews for
peace with the Arabs.
Netanyahu remained silent dur
ing the grave-side memorial at the
request of the Rabin family. In a
speech to parliament, he did not
address accusations that he bears
some responsibility for inciting the
assassination. Two opposition leg
islators walked out when Netanyahu
began to speak.
Throughout the day, TV stations
replayed the images that have been
etched in the memory of every Is
raeli: the amateur video showing
Amir firing the fatal shots at the end
of the Nov. 4 peace rally; the an
nouncement by Rabin’s aide that the
prime minister had died on the op
erating table of a Tel Aviv hospital;
the eulogy by Rabin’s freckle-faced
granddaughter Noa, who had
moved the world by speaking of her
own personal loss.
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