Thursday, March 9,2000
Page 2
Editor: Lindsay Young
(402) 472-1763
say Bradley leaving race
WASHINGTON (AP) - Bill
Bradley readied an endorsement of
old foe A1 Gore on Wednesday, as he
scripted his exit from the Democratic
presidential campaign. John McCain
went home to Arizona, his
Republican challenge near an end,
voluntarily or not.
Gore and Texas Gov. George
Bush, nominees-in-waiting, reached
out to their defeated rivals and jabbed
at one another as they pivoted toward
the general election.
Bush labeled the vice president
“an agent of Washington,” and Gore
returned the insult, saying Bush was
too cozy with the “extreme right” as
personified by the National Rifle
Association and religious broadcast
er Pat Robertson.
Bush also appealed to McCain’s
desire, often stated on the campaign,
to deny Gore the White House.
“I would say, ‘John, let’s team up
and let’s win. Let’s beat A1 Gore,” the
governor said.
He hastened to add he wasn’t
extending an offer of the vice presi
dential spot on his ticket.
Gore offered warm words for
Bradley, whom he had attacked
repeatedly in debates and advertising
when the nomination was at risk.
“Throughout the campaign I’ve
affirmed my belief that he is a good
person,” Gore said on NBC. “I have
worked with him in the Senate.”
Advisers to Bradley, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said the for
mer New Jersey senator would
announce his withdrawal on
Thursday and throw his support to
the vice president.
Bradley, 56, plans to stay active in
public life and is not expected to rule
out another presidential run, the
advisers said. They also said he has
no interest in the vice presidential
spot on the Democratic ticket.
Not that Gore was thinking along
those lines. One senior adviser to the
vice president, speaking on condition
of anonymity, noted that Bradley had
not won any contests in his quest for
the nomination, and Gore would
want someone on the ticket who had
demonstrated an ability to carry a
state.
A senior aide to McCain, also
speaking on condition of anonymity,
said a list of all possible options had
been prepared for his meetings dur
ing the day. These included staying in
the race to further his political agen
da, getting out and supporting the
GOP ticket and leaving to mount a
third-party bid. McCain has said pre
viously he would not leave the GOP,
and the adviser said he had no reason
to believe the senator had changed
his mind.
Republican aides said there had
been discussions about how to ease
McCain’s return to the Senate after a
campaign in which he often attacked
his own party as beholden to special
interests.
The presidential campaign was at
a pivot point, but there were still pri
maries to come, and both Bush and
Gore continued to seek votes.
After the virtual nationwide pri
mary on Tuesday, the AP delegate
count showed Gore with 1,424 dele
gates, to 412 for Bradley, out of 2,170
needed for the nomination.
Among Republicans, it was 617
for Bush to 231 for McCain, with
1,034 needed to nominate. Those
numbers told the hopelessness of
McCain’s position. An additional 91
delegates are at stake in Western
states on Saturday, and 351 more on
March 14 in states across the South,
the part of the country where Bush is
strongest.
Gunman’s ambush
kills four, injures one
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -
Firefighters responding to a house fire
Wednesday were ambushed by an off
duty Memphis firefighter who
stepped out of the garage and began
shooting, authorities said.
Two firefighters and a sheriff’s
deputy were killed, and a woman was
found dead in the garage.
The suspected gunman, Fred
Williams, was wounded and was
- undergoing surgery, Police Director
Walter E. Crews said. A bystander also
was wounded, but not seriously.
Williams had just returned to work
as a firefighter this week after an
extended leave on disability, Crews
said. The suspect did not work at the
same station as the men who were
killed, but J.C. Fleming, deputy direc
tor of the Fire Department, said they
probably knew each other from work
ing the same shift.
“We don’t expect this. We’re here
to fight fires,” Fire Chief H.J. Pickett
said. “You want to say it’s part of the
job, but it’s not.”
Williams did not live in the house,
and his relationship to the woman
found dead in the garage was unclear,
Crews said. Authorities also were
uncertain how the woman was killed
and whether the fire was set to cover
up her death.
Firefighters were called to the
home just before 1 p.m. When they
arrived, witnesses said, a man came
out of the garage firing a shotgun and
shouting, “Get away! Get away!”
Firefighters Lt. Javier Lerma and
Pvt. William Blakemore were killed.
Sheriff’s Deputy Rupert Peete was
shot in his patrol car as he responded to
the report of the shooting, authorities
said. His car crashed through a fence
and ended up next to the house.
Memphis police officers then
arrived and tried to get the gunman to
put down his weapon. When he
refused, “one of our officers got into a
gun battle and the suspect was shot,”
Crews said.
The shootings occurred in a neigh
borhood of mostly one-story brick
houses and well-kept yards at the edge
of the city. A golf course is a few miles
away.
Before firefighters arrived, neigh
bors reported seeing smoke coming
from the house and alerted the suspect,
but he said everything was fine,
according to authorities.
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NetSraskan
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I_
FUJIFOTOS/Newsmakers
Japanese authorities remove an injured woman from a train collision in
Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday. A rush-hour commuter train derailed and col
lided with an oncoming train, killing four people and injuring more than 30.
Four killed in Tokyo
after train car derails
■ Police blockade at
the busy crossing near
station causes traffic jam.
TOKYO (AP) - A Tokyo com
muter train peeled away the side of
an oncoming train car that derailed
during rush hour Wednesday morn
ing, unleashing a shower of glass and
metal in an accident that killed four
people and injured 33.
“With a ‘boom’ and an impact,
my body was lifted up from the seat
and I wondered what happened,”
passenger Motoshi Yamabe, 30, was
quoted as saying in Thursday’s
(Wednesday CDT) Japan Times.
An unidentified woman living
nearby told the paper, “1 heard a very
loud noise, and windows shook like
it was an earthquake.”
Bloodied garments lay strewn
about the scene. Shocked passengers
wandered near the ground-level
track. A police blockade at the busy
crossing near the station caused a
huge traffic jam. Metro train service
was disrupted for the morning rush.
Of the 33 people injured, several
were in critical condition, police
said.
The trouble began when a car in
the rear of a train emerging from a
tunnel derailed on a curve just short
of the elevated Nakameguro station
in western Tokyo and struck two cars
of an oncoming train packed with
1,300 passengers.
One side of the derailed car was
ripped away from end to end. Two
hundred and forty passengers were
aboard that train.
The cause of the accident was not
immediately known. An early media
report blamed the derailment on an
explosion, but officials - including
the prime minister - quickly denied
it.
All the air was gone from the
hydraulic shock absorber under the
derailed car, and that may have
played a role in the accident, media
reports said.
Transport Ministry officials said
a possible cause of the derailment
was the tracks’ sharp curve along a
slope, Kyodo News agency said.
Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi
instructed the Transport Ministry to
investigate, spokesman Akitaka
Saiki said.
Police were questioning the
trains’ operators and officials on sus
picion of professional negligence,
Kyodo said, but police refused to
confirm that late Wednesday.
It is believed to be the worst
Tokyo rail accident since 1988, when
one train rammed into the back of
another stopped at a station during
rush hour, killing two and injuring
92.
A 1995 sarin gas attack on
Tokyo’s subway killed 12 people and
sickened thousands.
■ Israel
Palestine, Israel resume peace
talks with U.S. assistance
JERUSALEM (AP) - Gritting
their teeth, Palestinians and Israelis
ended a crisis in the peace process
Wednesday by each conceding what
had been a cardinal “no”: Israelis
allowed greater U.S. involvement,
and Palestinians accepted territory
not abutting Jerusalem.
In a telling sign of the renewed
U.S. role, it was President Clinton’s
top envoy, Dennis Ross, who
announced the resumption of peace
talks, flanked by Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat.
Ross, who said the peace talks
would resume in Washington after
the four-day Muslim Eid al-Adha
holiday beginning March 16, said
the sides are committed to “work in
the spirit of partnership and mutual
confidence.”
■ Mozambique
Flood survivors face
problems with disease
MACIA, Mozambique (AP) -
Olga Timbe waited patiently
Wednesday outside a Red Cross
medical tent for a doctor to see her
baby, Carlos. The 6-month-old boy
lay limply in her arms, sick with
malaria and facing death unless he
receives treatment.
Like hundreds of thousands of
other Mozambicans, Timbe and her
son Carlos escaped quick death by
drowning only to face slow death
from malaria, acute diarrhea and res
piratory infections bred by the filthy,
stagnant water left behind after
recent floods.
On Wednesday morning, 105 of
the 6,000 displaced people in the
Macia camp sought treatment. An
equal number were expected in the
afternoon, Tamele said.
■ Chile
Pinochet hit with pile
of lawsuits at home
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - Legal
problems for Gen. Augusto Pinochet
have begun to mount at home amid a
flurry of new lawsuits stemming
from alleged human rights abuses
during his dictatorship.
With six new lawsuits filed
Tuesday, Pinochet faces a total of 72
cases in Chile. He returned to Chile
on Friday from his 16-month deten
tion in Britain, escaping attempts by
a Spanish judge who wanted to bring
him to trial on charges of torture and
torture conspiracy.
The most prominent suit Tuesday
was filed by Miria Contreras, a for
mer secretary to Marxist President
Salvador Allende, who was killed
when Pinochet took power in a 1973
coup.
■ New York
Government scholarship
letters sent to wrong people
NEW YORK (AP) - Thirty-nine
students were told last month they
had won prestigious government
scholarships for graduate study, only
to find out later that it was all a big
mistake and they were only runners
up.
“I think my heart snapped in
half,” a California doctoral candidate
wrote her congressional delegation
in a plea for help.
Help came Wednesday when the
Education Department called the
runners-up and said they will get the
fellowships after all, as will the right
ful winners.
It will cost taxpayers close to $ 1
million to fix the error, which the
government is blaming on a private
contractor that sent the wrong let
ters.