Three killed in N.J. dormitory fire
SOUTH ORANGE, NJ. (AP) -
Fire broke out at a Seton Hall
University dormitory early Wednesday
as hundreds slept, killing three people,
injuring 58 and sending terrified stu
dents crawling in pajamas through
choking smoke into the freezing cold
outside.
Four students were critically
burned. One of them suffered third
degree bums over most of his body.
Many of the 640 residents of
Boland Hall rolled over to go back to
sleep when they heard the alarm around
4:30 a.m., thinking it was another in a
string of 18 false alarms set off in the
six-floor building since September.
But many soon heard screams for
help, smelled the smoke and saw
flames creep under doors.
“I opened the door just to check,”
Yatin Patel said. “AH the ceiling tiles
were coming down. I saw a ceiling tile
fall on someone.”
“It was panic. Everybody was just,
‘Go! Go! Go!’’’saidNicole McFarlane,
I
19. She was treated for exposure
because she left her room in only a
short nightgown, a jacket and hiking
boots,
The cause of the fire was under
investigation.
The tragedy cast a pall of grief over
the campus of the Roman Catholic
school 15 miles southwest of New York
City.
Classes for the 10,000 students
were canceled for the week. A memori
al service was planned for Wednesday.
Sports events also were postponed
through today.
“There’s not much you can say at
this time,” said Newark Archbishop
Theodore McCarrick, who came to
offer support “We’re glad we’re people
of faith. The mystery of God’s work is
always a great mystery.”
Patel, who lives on the third floor,
down the hall from the lounge where
the blaze broke out, said he put a wet
towel under his door, kicked out his
window screens and threw his mattress
» A
•• I opened the door just to check. All the
ceiling tiles were coming down. I saw a
ceiling tile fall on someone.”
Yatin Patel
student
es on the ground in case he had to jump.
At least two students did jump, wit
nesses said. Tim Van Wie, 18, said a
friend jumped from the third floor and
suffered a broken wrist and sprained
ankle. Others tied sheets together to
climb down from the windows, but
firefighters arrived in time and rescued
them by ladder.
Keara Sauber, 18, saw one fellow
student shivering in a T-shirt and box
ers, his skin completely blackened by
bums.
“His skin was, like, smoking,” she
said ‘
Two of those killed were found in
the lounge, and one was found in a bed
room nearby.
Two firefighters and two police
officers were among those hurt. The
injuries ranged from exposure and
smoke inhalation to bums.
The blaze was largely confined to
the lounge. Students said they frequent
ly saw people smoking in the lounge,
though it is prohibited.
Essex County Prosecutor Donald
C. Campolo would not comment on
whether careless smoking may have
caused the fire. The Bureau of Alcohol
Tobacco and Firearms was assisting in
the investigation.
Clinton presents
health care plan
WASHINGTON (AP) -
President Clinton on Wednesday
unveiled a whopping $110 billion
package of health insurance initia
tives for his final year in office, ask
ing the Republican-dominated
Congress to approve the largest
investment in health care since
Medicare was created in 1965.
Less expensive versions of the
programs died last year, in part
because of the president’s own veto
of the Republicans’ $792 billion tax
cutting plan.
“These proposals are a signifi
cant investment in the health of
Americans; another step toward giv
ing every American access to quali
ty health care,” the president said.
About 44 millioaAmericans
lack health insurance, and die presi
dent’s proposal would cover about 5
million of them.
The largest ingredients of
Clinton’s plan are a $3,000 long
term care tax credit, costing $28 bil
lion over 10 years, and a $76 billion
proposal to insure 4 million parents
of children who receive health cov
erage under Medicaid and the state
Children’s Health Insurance
Program (CHIP).
Sensitive to the politics of a pres
idential campaign year, the presi
dent credited Vice President A1 Gore
with helping shape the administra
tion’s plan. He said Gore and his
Democratic rival, former Sen. Bill
Bradley, have proposed health pro
grams more extensive than his own.
“If you just look at what’s going
on in the election season this year,
the public cares a lot about health
care, and they’re talking a lot about
it,” Clinton said in an Oval Office
ceremony.
With the election year, health
care is a hot topic. Republicans and
Democrats alike are drawing up bills
dealing with long-term care, drugs
bought via the Internet, prescription
drugs and other initiatives.
“I’m pleased to see the president
joining the debate as we try to find
solutions to long-term care needs ”
said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa,
chairman of the Senate’s special
committee on aging.
>-.. •' • — - 1' 1''• ';•1 •'
f " ‘ ^ ^ if'*# %** -------,
m «. &WO* R J* „ *.' * V; "V I
Partly cloudy, * ^ Partly cloudy,
high 31, low 19 high 25, low 16
Net)ra:skan
Nbiujlu* LCJtrnr: LtdSdVfc-uiu p. i
'dtfJO.lU- T*v‘ P^ilni; r'.’j ftSkfof J*E 4|IJM40IU E 5* J4ll cJl 4* k
V« K<libn: P** : "Si-<1-J \*l *”“{
."iftlulim ICJtbff! JJ Ib-Vki » wiuiUi'fcuilI.Edu.
.-ipotli Editor: jo Mcll.:w.iii
4 KF KSibn: Sm ill R * Mtioal IMuntbiO'! Dalltcl Slu::il
tliqA’ l>-4h J.-U [siUkalinua Lourd IlmIcj ]]^.ni4iLL
Cnp*lkdltii'VlllJ: J'Wll-JjJle; •Thair'iimi n: '.J -~J ?5
IVtl.i vNii-f: W':: Wivi H»ihd«Jiilli,l f>>1V4 feu,
lli.'i|jil{'ip-rM<:f: D':. :.'-ti-«|-j .1 •; -r2; • .'J •2' t
□Ulent'-i- ' Itl^ Lull kUTer.i 4il'rrilMii^M:>iiJ|>ir: vk 1.1'hi>iLi
Ai*|Tliit-’lliii Mcljiucr-jlk • j, *,
tMiKdiim: ln>^j $I:n:iii A-ftC. 4d WoiU^cr: ]jV : YcUcr
ua ICJtuff! xiliurl: 0;«yivldAtf 1fk.boc".,lic
h* 'U’ lief I I?.- ?*.i
AVjH J ’,lke Web W. <.s fix'*" .
life LmIyHsb’tS iflivd SH itAn jUjI** • Ll'Afliittrt.'I?:r*:fa
y k 1 &■ 4. r I: it. L n^jl\h ArA H Is Vo -ley ‘ r« 4' I' by J. 'llJ * ‘e j'-khii *, vs* •
.yrj»Jfc<U“Bte i*:sklH blMi-jets • b K-'icll • io*‘*J"
IS* .4 C If* i -r* j£ kfcrt *JC v ds*$ ■» • J <om HsT :Tc**E -41 •'« Jf*<fa \ b'*4 I ‘4
■IJtl 7l-.ix.
i b:'nJkni*i)e "WUcfe *s**
I 'c :• "4 -sf ie *.4 tttt 4r* •Je'S t» 'Jfe LmI y ffeb tv ir.'«jf*lfa vli c 1 £<x 11 * I: it.
U «cl r-i-.S'S^ Is I'ek Jc* pe^.e.4-J*'J Ccn. Xt
ALL NATEklAL C^NTtlOlT i4tt>
THE MILT NEEAAWAH
Cuban boy’s relatives
file a federal lawsuit
MIAMI (AP) - Elian Gonzalez’s
relatives in Miami went to federal
court Wednesday to challenge the
Immigration and Naturalization
Service’s ruling that the 6-year-old
boy must be returned to his father in
Cuba.
Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian’s great
uncle, filed the federal lawsuit after
Attorney General Janet Reno
declared last week that the boy’s sta
tus was an immigration matter, solely
in the jurisdiction of federal law.
“It is about protecting Elian’s
civil and constitutional rights, the
same as if he was any other child,”
said Spencer Eig, a lawyer for the
great-uncle. Elian has been living
with his Miami relatives since he was
picked up off the Florida coast on
Thanksgiving Day.
No hearing date was immediately
set.
Reno had overruled a ruling from
a Miami family court judge delaying
the boy’s return. But Reno postponed
an INS deadline to return the boy to
his father in order to give Elian’s U.S.
relatives time to challenge the INS
decision.
Elian’s mother and stepfather
were among 11 people who drowned
trying to reach the United States, and
the boy was rescued at sea by the
Coast Guard after he was found
clinging to an inner tube in the
Atlantic.
The INS’s top official initially
ruled Elian should return to his
father, and the agency rejected a sec
ond asylum petition filed last week
on behalf of Elian by Lazaro
Gonzalez. The INS ruled that only
the boy’s father can represent his son.
Eig said Lazaro Gonzalez was
asking the court “not to decide the
issues in the case, not to take custody
away from Elian’s father, not to
decide whether or not Elian should
go back to Cuba, simply to compel
the U.S. government to give Elian a
fair hearing and his day in court.”
Many legal experts have insisted
since the fervor over the case began
that Elian’s U.S. relatives have no
standing.
“All along, the legal issue has
been who speaks for a 6-year-old boy,
and the answer is the closest surviv
ing relative. That is the father,” said
David Abraham, an immigration law
professor at the University of Miami.
The president of Cuba’s National
Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, called
Elian’s Miami relatives “a bunch of
kidnappers” Wednesday and said
their attempts to keep the boy in the
United States “ignores the American
government, showing disrespect for
its institutions.”
Leaders of several U.S. groups
that want Elian returned to his father
have warned they will call for
protests and acts of civil disobedi
ence if the child is not sent back soon.
The groups denounced Congress for
considering legislation that would
grant U.S. citizenship to the boy over
his father’s objections.
Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., who is
sponsoring a resolution to grant citi
zenship to the boy, said Wednesday:
“This is an issue about what his
mother wanted for the boy,” she said.
“To ignore her interests and her con
cern is unthinkable.”
RFK nephew charged in death
■ Michael Skakel is
accused in a 25-year-old
homicide.
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) - A
nephew of Robert F. Kennedy was
charged Wednesday with bludgeon
ing a girl to death with a golf club in
1975, when he was 15, providing the
long-awaited break in a case that
frustrated police in wealthy
Greenwich and raised suspicions of
a Kennedy cover-up.
Michael Skakel, 39, flew to
Connecticut from his home in
Florida and surrendered at
Greenwich police headquarters after
a warrant was issued for his arrest in
the slaying of Martha Moxley.
Because of Skakel’s age at the
time of the crime, the case will be
handled, at least initially, in juvenile
court.
Moxley was beaten with a 6-iron
and stabbed in the throat with a piece
of the club’s shattered shaft.
For years, investigators had been
trying to find the killer without suc
cess.
Investigators got their big break
during the past year, when a one-man
grand jury heard testimony from for
mer patients at the Elan school, a
substance abuse treatment center in
Maine that Skakel attended from
1978 to 1980. Prosecutors filed
court documents that said Skakel
admitted killing Martha to fellow
students at Elan.
told and Natiii§j
■ South Carolina
S.C. governor thinks flag
should not be flown,
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Gov.
Jim Hodges said Wednesday that
the Confederate battle flag should
be removed from the Capitol
dome.
It was the governor’s boldest
statement yet on the issue and came
two days after nearly 50,000 people
rallied on the Statehouse lawn, urg
ing the Legislature to bring the flag
down.
In his State of the State address,
Hodges said it was time to resolve a
matter that led a national civil
rights group to boycott South
Carolina amid charges of racial
insensitivity.
We must move the flag from
the dome to a place of historical
significance on the Statehouse
grounds,” Hodges, a Democrat,
said in a prepared copy of his
speech.
“The debate over the
Confederate flag has claimed too
much of our time and energy.”
As a state legislator, Hodges
supported previous attempts to
remove the flag, and earlier this
year he said he personally did not
think it should fly above the dome.
■ Russia
Military leader: Chechen
conflict should end by March
GROZNY, Russia (AP) - The
Russian military redoubled its
drive to conquer Chechen rebels on
Wednesday, with troops fighting
street by street in the capital,
Grozny, while helicopter gunships
and cannons relentlessly pounded
the southern mountains.
Lt. Gen. Gennady Troshev,
Russia’s deputy chief commander
in Chechnya, announced
Wednesday that the war was
expected to be over by Feb. 26,
although “nobody is giving the
forces any firm deadlines for end
ing the operation,” the Interfax
news agency reported.
He did not explain how he
arrived at that date.
Wednesday, federal forces
pushed toward the center of
Grozny from several directions,
trying to squeeze rebel fighters
into an ever-tightening circle, the
military said.
■ New York
Letterman leaves hospital to
recover from heart surgery
NEW YORK (AP) - David
Letterman left the hospital
Wednesday, five days after under
going quintuple bypass surgery, his
spokesman said.
“I think there must have been
some kind of mixup. I went to the
hospital to get a face-lift,”
Letterman joked as he left the hos
pital, according to spokesman
Howard Rubenstein.
Letterman, 52, was continuing
to recuperate at an undisclosed
location, Rubenstein said.
Letterman had emergency heart
surgery at New York-Presbyterian
Hospital on Friday after tests
showed that one of his arteries was
clogged.
“Dave has been an ideal
patient,” said his physician, Dr.
Louis Aronne.
“He feels strong and strolled
out of the hospital in great spirits. I
am confident his recovery will con
tinue along the same path.”
Rubenstein said he did not
know when Letterman would be
able to return to the “Late Show.”
CBS is airing reruns while
Letterman recovers.
