City manager of Miami fired
■ Mayor Joe CaroDo fires
manager in the aftermath
of Elian’s seizure.
MIAMI (AP) - Miami Mayor Joe
Carollo fired the city manager
Thursday, just days after he demanded
the man dismiss the police chief for
failing to warn the mayor about the raid
to seize Elian Gonzalez.
Carollo had asked City Manager
Donald Warshaw to fire Police Chief
William O’Brien, saying he “lost all
confidence” in the chief for not telling
him that federal agents were about to
raid the Gonzalez household early
Saturday. Warshaw refused.
Carollo insisted Thursday that
Warshaw’s firing had nothing to do
with “little Elian.” Carollo said
Warshaw has been criticizing him,
lying and trying to turn department
heads against him.
The seizure of the 6-year-old
Cuban boy has plunged City Hall into
political turmoil. Only the city manager
can fire the police chief, and Warshaw’s
refusal set die stage for the confronta
tion at a City Commission meeting
Thursday night
Warshaw, who preceded O’Brien
as chief, shook his head with a look of
disgust as Carollo spoke. The city com
mission can overturn Carollo^ decision
if four out of five commissioners vote
to do so.
Hours after Elian was taken from
the home of his Miami relatives,
Carollo said of O’Brien, “If I had that
power... I would fire him.”
The police chief had an hour of
advance notice of the 5:15 a.m. raid but
has said he didn’t want to tip off the
mayor, who unlike O’Brien, is Cuban
American and had openly sided with
the Cuban boy’s Miami relatives.
“This was a police issue, not a polit
ical issue,” O’Brien has said.
The mayor also had demanded
O’Brien’s firing for letting the police
department’s second in command, Maj.
John Brooks, get involved in the raid.
Brooks rode in the van that whisked
Elian away. Police said Brooks did that
so other police officers on duty at the
house would realize it was an official
action. Officers on the scene had only a
moment’s notice of the raid.
Days before the raid, the mayor had
^ This was a police issue, not a
political issue.’’
William O’Brien
Police Chief
declared that Miami police officers
would not help federal agents remove
the boy from the Litde Havana home.
City Commissioner Tomas
Regalado sided with Carollo in calling
for the police chief’s firing, saying: “He
has lost his ability to direct the depart
ment.”
City Commissioner Johnny
Winton, who supports both O’Brien
and Warshaw, said: “We have a mayor
running around here pouring fuel on
the fire instead of providing leadership
to our community. It’s a very, very sad
statement for all of the citizens of our
community.”
Protests broke out among Miami’s
Cuban Americans after Saturday’s
lightning raid, and police in riot gear
arrested more than 300 people and used
tear gas to disperse crowds.
On Thursday morning, about 50
protesters gathered outside City Hall,
with many signing a petition calling for
the removal of Warshaw and O’Brien.
Karla Martinez, 22, called for an
investigation into alleged police brutal
ity. She said she was arrested Saturday
while protesting and was knocked to
the ground by a female officer. “To pick
me up, she dragged me along the
asphalt,” she said.
Gov. Jeb Bush said he met with
Carollo on Thursday and encouraged
him to consider an investigation into
the alleged abuse by Miami police,
rather than moving ahead with an
attempt to fire the city manager.
“I asked the mayor to be reflective
rather than reactive,” Bush said.
Carollo became mayor after a fraud
ridden 1997 election that resulted in the
apparent victor, Xavier Suarez, being
forced from office.
Giuliani fights
cancer while
campaigning
NEW YORK (AP) - Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani disclosed Thursday that he has
prostate cancer and acknowledged that while
the disease was caught early, it could spell the
end of his Senate run against Hillary Rodham
Clinton. }
Appearing upbeat aftd energetic at a City
Hall news conference, Giuliani, 55, confirmed
speculation that started Wednesday evening
when he was seen entering a hospital and leav
ing three hours later. ,
“I was diagnosed yesterday,” Giuliani said.
“It’s a treatable form of prostate cancer. It was
diagnosed at an early stage.”
The Republican mayor said he would con
tinue his Senate run for now but would make a
more definitive statement in two to three
weeks, after he decides on a course of treat
ment. He still plans campaign appearances in
Saratoga and Buffalo today and Saturday.
“I really need to know what the course of
treatment is going to be before I can evaluate,”
he said. “And then after I determine that, then I
will figure out does it make sense this year or
doesn’t it or whatever.”
Treatment of the cancer would almost cer
tainly require as much as several weeks away
from City Hall and off the campaign trail.
The first lady, who was campaigning in the
upstate village of Penn Yan, spoke briefly by
telephone with the mayor and wished him “a
speedy and complete recovery,” said Clinton
spokeswoman Karen Dunn.
Clinton did not even obliquely criticize
Giuliani, as she has done at many of her recent
campaign appearances. Aides said that given
the news of the mayor’s health, even a veiled
political attack would have been inappropriate.
Microsoft sanctions
being worked out
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
Justice Department and 19 states
that successfully sued Microsoft
for antitrust violations worked out
' last-minute details Thursday to
' sanctions proposed against the
company.
Facing a deadline today, the
government and attorneys general
are expected to file a single pro
posal that will recommend break
ing up the software giant in two
parts to prevent it from engaging
in any illegal behavior in the
future.
The proposal will be submit
ted to U.S, District Court Judge
Thomas Penfield Jackson, who on
April 3 ruled that Microsoft
repeatedly violated federal
antitrust laws intended to maintain
competition. He found the compa
ny used its monopoly power in the
operating systems market to crush
rivals.
Jackson gave the government
and the states the option of submit
ting separate briefs if they failed to
agree on a remedy. Despite doubts
expressed by some states on the
divestiture plan, a single proposal
will be filed with the court,
according to people close to the
talks.
“There will be one document
which will be the voice for the
Department of Justice and virtual
ly all of the states,” said one
source, speaking on condition of
anonymity, though “one or two
states may choose to put in an
appendix or footnotes” to record
their difference of opinion in some
areas.
Microsoft has Baid it plans to
appeal Jackson’s ruling, and com
pany executives have insisted that
no laws were broken. In an inter
view earlier this week with The
Associated Press, Microsoft
Chairman Bill Gates said divesti
ture of any part of the company he
founded 25 years ago would hurt
consumers and be “a very inap
propriate thing.”
New York State Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer called the
recent comments by Gates, along
with those by the chief executive
officer, Steve Ballmer, “funda
mentally distortive.”
“The truth is that Microsoft
has been a monopolist found by a
federal judge to have undercut
innovation, and hence competi
tion and consumer welfare,” said
Spitzer, pointing to passages of
Jackson’s April 3 ruling.
Microsoft has until May 10 to
respond to the government’s filing
but has said it would request an
extension to respond to a proposal
as extreme as a breakup.
Under the government’s pro
posal, Microsoft would likely be
split into two parts. One company
would sell Windows, the operating
system that runs most of the
world’s personal computers. The
other would handle applications
software, such as the dominant
Office software suite, which
includes the word processor,
Word, and the spreadsheet pro
gram, Excel.
Justice Department officials
gave an “informational briefing”
on the proposal to White House
economic advisers earlier this
week “because I think it is a signif
icant and important case,” said
Attorney General Janet Reno.
In a separate document filed
with the court Thursday, a group
of prominent antitrust experts
urged Jackson to order a more
extreme measure - to “clone the
operating systems into three com
panies.”
The government’s likely pro
posal “is a move a right direction,
but doesn’t go far enough,” said
the brief’s chief author, Robert
Litan, a former Justice
Department official who negotiat
ed with Microsoft in a related
1994 case and now works for the
Brookings Institution.
Other authors of the report are
Roger Noll, an economist at
Stanford University; William D.
Nordhaus, a Yale University econ
omist; Frederic Scherer, an econo
mist at Harvard University’s John
F. Kennedy School of
Government.
In addition to the govern
ment’s lawsuit, Microsoft faces
more than 100 private antitrust
lawsuits.
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Bush-McCain negotiations
nearly break down in dispute
WASHINGTON (AP) - In a
blow to George W. Bush’s bid to
unify the Republican Party, negotia
tions for a May 9 meeting between
the nominee-in-waiting and van
quished rival John McCain nearly
broke down Thursday in a dispute
that widened the rift between their
two camps.
Senior McCain advisers said the
first face-to-face meeting since the
Arizona senator left the presidential
race would likely be postponed - if
not canceled - in a disagreement
over the agenda.
In an effort to salvage the event,
which is important to the political
futures of both McCain and Bush,
their top advisers planned to meet
today in the Washington office of
1996 GOP presidential candidate
Bob Dole, who will not be present.
m »■ ■■ —■-■
■ Hmntanos
Judge rejects delay request
in trial of bombing suspects
CAMP ZEIST, Netherlands
(AP) - A Scottish judge - noting die
defendants already have been held
for 416 days - on Thursday rejected
prosecutors’ request for an eight
week delay in the trial of two
Libyans accused in the 1988
Lockerbie bombing.
Prosecutors had argued they
need more time to review 119 new
witnesses and additional evidence
submitted by the defense last week.
The judge, Lord Sutherland,
who has granted two delays sought
by the defense since last June, ruled
the trial will begin May 3 as sched
uled.
■ Iran
Iranian hard-liners close
more reform-friendly papers
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian
hard-liners shut down three more
newspapers Thursday, including one
owned by reformist President
Mohammad Khatami’s brother,
pressing their campaign against
publications that have fueled public
support for reform.
About 200 students demonstrat
ed against the closures at the Shahid
Beheshti University in northern
Tehran in the early hours today, said
an Iranian journalist, speaking on
condition of anonymity. The stu
dents burned tires and threw stones
at university buildings and were dis
persed by police after about an hour.
The media closures, now num
bering 16, are hampering Khatami’s
allies’ political ambitions. Only one
reformist paper remained publishing
Thursday as campaigning started for
the May 5 run-off elections, which
will decide 66 seats in the 290-seat
parliament, or Majlis.
■Kona
North, South Korea iron
out more details in summit
PANMUNJOM, Korea (AP) -
The two rival Koreas have moved
close to an agreement on how to pro
ceed at their unprecedented summit,
South Korean officials said
Thursday.
But North Korea and South
Korea, who fought a 1950-53 war
ending without a treaty, still must
move forward on an agenda for the
June 12-14 summit of the two lead
ers, the officials indicated
“We will try to resolve it step by
step without a rush,” said Park Jae
kyu, South Koreafe unification min
ister, after officials of both Koreas
* met fora 90-min«te mceting. J