Bush seeks support from gays
■ The GOP presidential
candidate met with gay
Republicans.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - George W.
Bush met with a dozen gay
Republicans on Thursday as he kept up
his courting of support from outside his
party’s conservative core.
“I’m a better person for the meet
ing,” he declared.
The presumptive GOP presidential
nominee assured conservatives his
social views were intact, his opposition
to ideas such as gay marriage unshaken
by the hour-long session at his cam
paign headquarters.
'' The gays he met with, selected by
his campaign, were upbeat.
“The goal was not to change his
mind. It was to start a conversation,”
said Steve Gunderson, a former
Republican congressman from
Wisconsin.
Bush has been portraying himself
as a different kind of Republican -
f
much as Bill Clinton and A1 Gore paint
ed themselves as a new breed of
Democrat in 1992. And in that light,
there could be political gain in spot
lighting the meeting - even though gay
voters generally support Democrats by
margins of 2-to- l or greater.
But there is danger, too, said David
Rohde, a political science professor at
Michigan State University.
“You don’t want to risk alienating
your base vote, and that represents a
particular problem for Bush, because if
Pat Buchanan is the Reform Party
nominee, then the Republican base
vote has someplace else to go,” Rohde
said.
Indeed, Bush was barely back at the
Texas Governor’s Mansion, where he
was crowning the state’s new
“Bluebonnet Queen,” when conserva
tive Gary Bauer warned that Bush was
running the risk of driving conserva
tives to Buchanan.
The former presidential candidate
told The Associated Press in an inter
view: “I don’t think it does broaden (the
base) when you take that approach.
^ I think it would be bizarre to pick
somebody to speak at the convention
based on their sexual preferences
because once you go down that road,
why don’t you pick a transvestite? ”
Gary Bauer
former Republican presidential candidate
That’s the approach that we tried in the
last two presidential elections. We end
up shooting ourselves in the foot.”
Bauer also criticized one idea
broached at the meeting, having a gay
Republican speak at this summer’s
Republican National Convention.
“I think it would be bizarre to pick
somebody to speak at the convention
based on their sexual preference,
because once you go down that road,
why don’t you pick a transvestite?”
Bauer asked.
Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway
said, “Bush owes too much to anti-gay
leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry
Fahvell to deliver anything for the gay
and lesbian community”
Bush aides dismissed a Buchanan
challenge. They told reporters there
were none of the “strategic underpin
nings” in place for a successful third
party campaign.
Advisers noted that Bush has edged
ahead of Gore in many of the latest
polls.
U.S. Navy officer
arrested in Russia
■ Russian authorities
charge officer with trying
to buy military secrets.
MOSCOW (AP) - Russian
authorities have charged a former
U.S. Navy officer with espionage
after holding him in a Moscow prison
for more than a week, saying he had
tried to obtain military secrets, offi
cials said Thursday.
The U.S. Embassy has identified
the American as Edmond Pope, but
Russian authorities have consistently
refused to identify him or a Russian
man arrested as an alleged accom
plice.
A spokesman with the Federal
Security Service, Russia’s main intel
ligence agency, said the American
faced up to 20 years in prison if con
victed.
The Russian was charged with
divulging state secrets and faced 10
years behind bars.
The agency, known by the initials
FSB, said it had found documents
proving the American had cultivated
contacts with Russian scientists in an
effort to buy state secrets.
Russian television agencies said
he was arrested after paying for plans
of a submarine-launched missile.
Pope is being held in Moscow’s
Lefortovo prison, where he has been
visited by U.S. diplomats, U.S.
Embassy officials said. A Russian
lawyer has been appointed for him.
A woman reached at Pope’s home
in State ^College, Pa., who asked not to
be identified, said Thursday that the
family was not prepared to comment
on the charges.
Pope is a native of Grants Pass,
Ore. After retiring from the Navy,
Pope worked in 1994-97 with
Pennsylvania State University’s
Applied Research Laboratory, which
does research for the military.
Pope was an “assistant for foreign
technology” who developed contacts
between Russian and U.S. research
institutes and worked on converting
technology for commercial uses, a
statement from Penn State said.
He left the laboratory to create
CERF Technologies International,
which “has commercial contacts with
organizations in Russia,” according to
the statement.
He frequently traveled to Russia
on business, according to the state
ment
A friend ofPope’is who has kept in
touch with him said in a recent news
paper interview that Pope had been
concerned he might get framed for his
work.
Richard Penny said Pope told him
he was being contacted constantly by
Russians seeking American cash.
“He said he had a hard time sleep
ing at night because people were
always knocking on his door asking
him to buy things,” Penny was quoted
as saying by the Daily Courier in
Giants Pass. “He realized he could be
set up.”
So far, the reaction to Pope’s case
has been muted, with neither Russia
nor the United States commenting as
much as they did during a string of
arrests of alleged spies last year.
Court grants temporary
stay in battle for Elian
MIAMI (AP) - A federal appeals
court issued a temporary stay Thursday
that keeps Elian Gonzalez in the United
States while the government and his
relatives fight over whether he will be
returned to his father and sent home to
Cuba.
The government said it expected
the order would delay any showdown
for “three or four days.”
The order came barely an hour after
the passing of a government deadline
for the boy’s Miami relatives to hand
him over.
Deputy Court Cleric Chris Basnett
said the stay was issued shortly after 3
p.m. (2 p.m. CST) It was not immedi
ately clear how long the stay would be
in effect.
The Justice Department, however,
said it had agreed to wait to reclaim the
boy until the court could review the
emergency petition filed by Elian’s
great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez.
The government had said through
most of Thursday that it would act to
take custody of the boy after its 2 p.m.
deadline passed - a deadline the Miami
relatives ignored.
The appeals court asked the
Department of Justice to forestall any
enforcement action while they review a
motion for a temporary injunction by
attorneys for Lazaro Gonzalez, the
agency said in a statement
“We agreed to this with a time
frame in mind of three or four days,”
Justice spokeswoman Carole Florman
said.
The stay was granted by a single
judge from the three-judge panel
because it was an emergency. The gov
ernment was given until 9:30 a.m.
^ They will have
to take this child
from me by
force."
Lazaro Gonzalez
Elian’s great-uncle
Friday to respond in court.
Earlier, Attorney General Janet
Reno said the government would act in
a “reasonable, measured way,” and
would not try to remove the boy imme
diately after the government
announced deadline.
“We have the authority to take
action,” Reno said. “But responsible
authority means not only knowing
when to take action, but how and when
to take that action.”
After failing to reach an agreement
with the family Wednesday during a
dramatic 2‘/-hour meeting attended by
Elian, Reno ordered them to bring him
to Opa-locka airport outside Miami at 2
p.m. for a flight to Washington.
Lazaro Gonzalez has insisted he
would not relinquish custody of the boy
he has cared for since Elian’s mother
drowned off the Florida coast nearly
five months ago. “We will not turn this
child over - not in Opa-locka, not in any
‘locka,’” he said. “They will have to
take this child from me by force.”
Gregory Craig, attorney for Elian’s
father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, said
after the deadline passed that Elian was
being held “unlawfully ... against his
father’s will.”
Editor: Josh Funk
Managing Editor: Lindsay Young
Associate News Editor: Diane Broderick
Associate News Editor: Dane Stickney
Opinion Editor: J J. Harder
Sports Editor: Sam McKewon
A&E Editor: Sarah Baker
Copy Desk Co-Chief: Jen Walker
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Publications Board Jessica Hofmann,
Chairwoman: (402)477-0527
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(402)473-7248
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■Washington, D.C.
Drug ring that bribed FedEx
drivers broken up by arrests !
WASHINGTON (AP) - Making
dozens of arrests, federal drug agents
on Thursday broke up a Jamaican-led
narcotics ring that employed bribed
FedEx drivers in a scheme to distrib
ute 121 tons of Mexican marijuana to
East Coast markets.
The Drug Enforcement
Administration said FedEx’s top offi
cials fully cooperated with the 18
month investigation, which has led to
the arrests of 101 people since it
began.
The latest arrests began shortly
after midnight Thursday and by late
afternoon there had been 45 arrests,
22 of them FedEx employees, DEA
agents said at a news conference. Rod
Benson, assistant special agent of die
DEA’s special operations branch said
he expected an additional 10 or 15
arrests.
■Washington, D.C.
Clinton denounces suggestion
of pardon for alleged crimes
WASHINGTON (AP) -
President Clinton heatedly said
Thursday “I’m not ashamed” about
being impeached and “I’m not inter
ested” in being pardoned for any
alleged crimes in the Monica
Lewinsky scandal and Whitewater
investigation.
But Clinton did not say whether
he would accept a pardon if it were
offered by his successor.
Republicans immediately
pounced on his failure to answer the
question.
“The answer is I have no interest
in it. I wouldn’t ask for it. I don’t think
it would be necessary,” the president
told the convention of the American
Society of Newspaper Editors. “I am
prepared to stand before any bar of
justice I have to stand before.”
■Ethiopia
Ethiopia’s prime minister
wants focus on country’s
famine, not war
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP)
- Ethiopia’s prime minister said
Thursday he wants to concentrate on
easing a drought-induced famine that
threatens 7.7 million of his people,
rather than dwell on the regional poli
tics that have taken his country to war.
Prime Minister Meles Zanawi
spoke after talks with U.N. World
Food Program chief Catherine
Bertini, sent by U.N. Secretary
General Kofi Annan to assess the
food shortage in the Horn of Africa.
“I hope her visit to our country
will mark a new beginning in the
chapter of this saga where humanitar
ian issues are separated from political
issues,” Meles told reporters in Addis
Ababa.
■New Yurie
Firm predicts e-only business
es will bankrupt by next year
NEW YORK (AP) -The battoed
e-retailing world was hit with another
blow this week when a reputable con
sulting firm predicted that most
retailers that operate entirely on the
Internet will be out of business by
next year.
Intense competition combined
with an ongoing selloff in dot-com
stocks will result in a rapid rise in
buyouts and bankruptcies in the com
ing months, according to Forrester
Research Inc.
The fallout already has begun.
Lawyers and consultants are getting
swamped with caHs for he^) from
companies in distress.
' " r ...
