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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 18, 1997)
News Digest ■ Jim Mehsung/DN “Pistol-packing grar inas’ fight off robbers MOSES LAKE, Wash. — Two “pistol-packing grandmas” were honored for foiling the plans of some would-be robbers. Four intruders forced their way into the home of 75-year-old Dor othy Cunningham and 61-year-old Marty Killinger late last week and demanded their car keys. While Killinger argued and struggled with one of the intruders in the living room, Cunningham got her Luger from her bedroom and ordered the young men to head for the hills. “I said some strong words to them that I don’t usually use,” she said. “I told them to get out or I’d shoot and kill them.” The men ran outside but continued taunting the two women — until Cunningham fired four shots over their heads. “I was raised in the Tetons and whenver I wasn’t herding sheep or cattle or working in the fields, I’d take a .22 rifle and target shoot,” explained Cunningham. ‘I’m not afraid of guns and I know how to use them.” _ A 20-year-old and three teen-agers were arrested on suspicion of burglary and attempted robbery. And Cunningham and Killinger got some official attention of their own.. “Henceforth* Dorothy Cunningham and Marty Killinger will be t , a&IhfrPismlrEnelptg.Grandmas,” Grant County, Sheriff SiH r, r Wiester said Friday during a ceremony at the couhty courthouse. Arkansas to revive memory of 1957 desegregation war LITTLE ROCK, Ark, (AP) — An old gas station with shattered windows and peeling yellow paint began a transformation Monday into a visitor’s center for one of the primary battle fields in the fight against segregation. The dilapidated building across from Little Rock Central High School will be restored to the way it looked in 1957, the year that nine black stu dents were allowed into the all-white high school. More than $700,000 will be spent to put vintage gas pumps where rusted pipes now stand, replace broken cor rugated tiles on the rooftop and turn a grimy interior into a plush center ready to show a slice of history. “Having this on President’s Day is significant because it was a president who ultimately let those students in,” Gov. Mike Huckabee said at the groundbreaking. “Little Rock needs to make what was a very unpleasant memory into a reminder that some thing like that will never happen again.” Gov. Orval Faubus claimed he was acting in the public interest when he deployed National Guard troops to keep black students from entering the school in September 1957. President Eisenhower nationalized the Guard and sent in U.S. Army soldiers to clear a path. Admission to the visitor’s center, which opens in September, will be free. It will include rooms for show ing film of the first black students en tering the school and photographs documenting scuffles between stu dents, parents and soldiers. |8gon/|ggrt|j^^^^ Virginia retires controversial state song RICHMOND, Va. — Not a single discordant note was sounded Monday as Virginia's House of Delegates voted to retire a state song that critics say glorifies slavery with words like “darkey” and “massa.” The House voted 100-0 to make “Carry Me Back to Old Virginia” the state song emeritus. There was no debate. “This puts the song where it belongs — in history — and it won’t be troubling us any further,” said Delegate William P. Robinson Jr. The first repeal attempt was made in 1970 by then-state Sen. L. Douglas Wider, a grandson of slaves who became the nation’s first elected black governor. Similar legislation became an annual fixture* rejected every year by lawmakers who said the song was an important part of Virginia’s heri tage! This year, they were persuaded by arguments that the song is so offensive, it’s no longer taught to schoolchildren and hasn’t been per formed at an official state function in two decades. North Korea contemplates accepting Hwang's defection Despite tension, South Korea will give humanitarian aid to neighbor. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -— North Korea indicated Monday that it might accept the defection of Hwang Jang Yop, the high-ranking North Korean official who has been holed up in South Korea’s Beijing consulate. “Our stand is simple and clear. If he was kidnapped... we will take de cisive countermeasures,” a North Ko rean Foreign Ministry spokesman said. “If he sought asylum, it means that he is a renegade and he is dis missed.” Previously, North Korea had re fused to accept the defection, accus ing South Korea of kidnapping Hwang and threatening retaliation. Hwang, a key communist theoretician and former tutor of North Korean leader Kim Jong II, is the highest-ranking North Korean to seek asylum in the South. Hie North Korean spokesman, who spake on customary condition of anonymity, told Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News agency that the North had asked Beijing to investigate Hwang’s “disappearance.” Monday’s comment was the first sign of a possible solution to the tense standoff created by last Wednesday’s defection. North Korea had previously rejected the possibility that Hwang had defected. South Korea also said Monday that it will provide North Korea with hu manitarian aid and nuclear reactors, despite tension caused by Hwang’s defection and a suspected North Ko rean attack on another key North Ko rean defector. Lee Han-young, 36, a nephew of a former wife of the North Korean leader, was shot and critically wounded Saturday. South Korean police continued their investigation Monday but said they had no definite evidence proving North Korean involvement in the shooting. Seoul officials believe that Pyongyang ordered the attack as re venge for the defection of Hwang, 73, a member of its highest decision-mak ing body,-the Central Committee of the ruling Workers Party. Ban Ki-moon, President Kim Young-sam’s national security adviser, said his country will accept a U.N. appeal for fresh humanitarian aid for North Korea, as well as sending a team of nuclear technicians to survey a site in North Korea where two reactors will be built under a 1994 U.S.-North Korean accord. The tense standoff over Hwang’s defection had threatened the accord. It was aimed at freezing North Korea’s nuclear program, suspected of being used to build atonic bombs. China kept silent Monday on the fate of Hwang as the Koreas fought a tense, diplomatic tug-of-war. Heavily armed police, backed by an armored car and water cannon, guarded the South Korean consulate where Hwang has been hiding. Challenged several times by North Koreans keeping a vigil outside the consulate, police blocked surrounding streets with their cars and tire-shred ding spikes. China faces a dilemma in decid ing whether to allow Hwang to leave for South Korea. It does not want to infuriate North Korea, a longtime ally on whose side it fought in the 1950 53 Korean War. But China also has diplomatic relations with South Ko rea and wants to encourage growing commercial ties. In Bonn, Germany, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Mon day she is “very concerned” about ten sions between South and North Ko rea. •3 White House aides speculate that Starr does not intend to. indict President Clinton. WASHINGTON (AP) t Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr will step down from the probe to take a job at Pepperdme University, the school said Monday. The announcement raises ques tions about whether Starr’s investiga tion of President Clinton and the first lady is at an end. The Whitewater investigation, which Starr has led for the past 214 years, is at a critical juncture with prosecutors weighing the evidence involving the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Starr and the Whitewater prosecutor’s office were silent after the announcement by Pepperdine Univer sity in Malibu, Calif. But a lawyer familiar with the Whitewater probe cautioned against reading too much into Starr’s stepping down from the investigation. Starr will decide what, if any, ac tion to take against the Clintons and “he will have ample time to consider all matters,” said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The lawyer said the question of precisely when Starr will leave the Whitewater prosecutor's office has yet f-lfi ..t ' ' - to be decided. A former presidential aide sug gested indictments won’t be forthcom ing. “Is Starr going to indict the first lady and then leave for the West Coast? I don’t think so,” said the aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. Hie White House had no official comment, though aides also privately speculated the prosecutor must not intend to indict the first family. ? The Clintons’ Whitewater lawyer, David Kendall, amid not be reached for immediate comment. In a press release, Pepperdine Uni versity said Starr would become dean of its law school Aug. 1 and founding dean of its new school of public policy. In an interview, Pepperdine Presi dent David Davenport said Starr felt comfortable with his decision. “My assumption from talking with Ken in the interview process es that the investigation will go forward,” Davenport said. “I think he feels confident that there is a good team of people in place who are working on it and he has sev eral more months to be part of the in vestigation before he reports fpr duty out here,” Davenport said. Starr has faced criticism from Clinton loyalists for maintaining his private law practice and representing corporate clients who oppose the Clinton administration at the same time Starr investigates the president and the first lady. Also, right-wing groups have ac- 1 cused Starr of failing to adequately 1 address questions surrounding the 1 death of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster, which twice has been ruled a suicide. Starr has not yet an nounced his conclusions in the death probe. Word of Starr’s planned departure comes amid other upcoming develop ing involving Whitewater: ■The Clintons’ former Whitewater partner, Jim McDougal, is to appear in court April 14 for sen tencing on his conviction on 18 felony charges. Prosecutors may give further clues on to what extent he has been cooperating with investigators since turning against the president and first lady last summer. ■ Former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker faces another fraud trial. He is accused of trying to avoid the payment of millions of dollars in taxes on a cable television deal which turned him into multimillionaire. Now in private practice with the Washington office of the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, Starr was appointed a federal judge by President Bush’s solicitor general — the government’s chief courtroom lawyer. Starr, 50, previously taught at Pepperdine’s law school and he has served on its board of visitors since 1992 and has spoken at university events, receiving an honorary degree from the school last year. Starr will remain a partner at Cirkland & Ellis as a resident in the inn’s Los Angeles office, at the same ime working full time at Pepperdine. _ Daily Questions? Comment#? Ask for the appropriate section editor at472-2588 or e-maH dndunlinfo.unl.edu. ' -'X . FAX NUMBER: 472-1761 The Daily Nebraskan (USPS144-080) is published by the UNL Publications Board, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St., Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, Monday through Friday during the academic year; weekly during summer sessions. Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by calling 472-2588. The public has access to the Publications Board. Subscription price is $55 for one year. Postmaster: Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R SL, Lincoln, NE 68588-0448. Sec ond-class postage paid at Lincoln, Neb. ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1997 DAILY NEBRASKAN J •v ' ■ Wv