I
Six convicts caught after prison escape
■The group,found west of Nashville,
was planning on heading to Canada
before police caught up with them.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS__
DICKSON, Tenn. — Six escaped con
victs from Alabama were captured in
Tennessee on Thursday, two days after
they broke but of a maximum-security
prison by using a broom handle to lift an
electrified fence.
Authorities stumbled onto the group
along a country road about 50 miles west
of Nashville and 165 miles from the
prison.
They scattered and were caught with
out violence over an eight-hour span.
"We just partied, drank and got high -
just had a good time,’* convicted burglar
James McClain said after his arrest.
He said the group was headed to
Memphis and then planned to drive to
Canada.
They had stopped near in the commu
nity of Bucksnort, west of Dickson, to eat,
clean themselves and rest
There were three convicted murderers
among the group and their escape
prompted many in the region to lock their
doors.
Authorities said two of the inmates
beat and robbed the manager of a Georgia
RV park on Wednesday. The manager was
treated and released.
The six stopped at a gas station
Wednesday not far from where they were
found. Three went in and bought six
bologna sandwiches, beer, toothpaste,
toothbrushes ^nd shampoo, authorities
said.
“I heard somebody say six bologna
sandwiches,” cleric Betty Wallace said. “I
thought it was Joe Stampley's (country
music) band. They come here regularly.”
Authorities said they found the group
by luck.
Just after midnight, two sheriff’s
deputies, looking for someone who had
stolen a street sign, came upon a car
parked near a creek the convicts appar
ently were using to wash themselves.
Deputy Darrell Groves said the
inmates “scattered like a bunch of deer”
into the woods.
The deputies learned the.car had been
stolen near the Alabama prison and inside
found a shotgun, an empty pistol holder,
money and several makeshift knives.
The deputies called for help and
caught the first three inmates around 6
am. with the help of a tracking dog.
“We ordered them to give up and they
came out unarmed,” police officer Bryan
Johnson said. “We said, ‘Who are you?’
And, they said, ‘You know who we are.”’
TWo more convicts were found within
an hour. Gary Scott eluded authorities for
another six-and-a-half hours before two
residents spotted him crouched under a
bridge.
“We told an FBI agent, went down the
road a little piece and turned around, and
by the time we got there, there were three
state highway patrol cars there,” said
Benny Rumsey, one of the residents.
The inmates escaped Tuesday by slip
ping beneath an electric fence and two
razor-wire fences at Alabama’s St. Clair
Correctional Facility, northeast of
Birmingham, before guards noticed they
were gone.
Prison commi^ioner Mike Haley has
blamed the escape on a manpower short
age and faulty security, including an alarm
system that didn’t go off.
Captured were McClain, 35; Scott, 31;
Billy Gamble, 24; Steve Murphy, 45; O.C.
Borden, 33; and Jack Allred, 43.
Scott, Murphy and Borden were serv
ing life sentences for murder.
India rescuers
end search
for survivors
TOE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BHUJ, India—Some international rescue teams
made the wrenching decision Thursday to abandon
the search for possible earthquake survivors, as a lack
of coordination appeared to hamper the other task
feeding and housing the living and treating their
wounds.
Aid was reaching many, but bundles of blankets,
bags of rice and lentils, cartons of mineral water and
other supplies were heaped outside the railway
height office in Ahmedabad, the main staging point
for the relief effort and the commercial center of the
western state of Gujarat, where the epicenter of the
Jan. 26 quake was located.
"It’s beginning to clog up the system because
there is no coordination. In some cases you have peo
ple just throwing stuff off of trucks, and that is not a
good way to distribute relief supplies,” said Ken
Maclean, the west India representative for Catholic
Relief Services of Baltimore.1
The numbers hint at what relief organizations
face. So far, 14,241 bodies have been recovered,
Gujarat officials said Thursday, estimating the final
toll Would reach 35,000. The full toll may never be
known because many of the dead may have been cre
mated in remote villages or remain buried under flat
tened towns and cities.
More than 60,000 people were injured as chunks
of concrete and stone rained down from collapsing
buildings. About600,000 people were left homeless.
Although it has rele£ed no official damage esti
mate, the central government announced a 2 percent
income tax hike Thursday to help pay for relief and
rebuilding after India’s worst earthquake in 50 years.
The U.S. Geological Survey downgraded the
quake’s initial 7.9 magnitude measurement to 7.7,
saying it was a normal adjustment as it examined
additional data.
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Ashcroft voted attorney general
ASHCROFT from page!
Vouching for the nominee’s hon
esty and integrity, he brushed aside
weeks of attacks by Democrats,
including many of Ashcroft’s former
Senate colleagues. “I don’t know that
person" they’re depicting, Lott said.
Democrats claimed a consolation
prize, saying the 42 votes against the
nomination would be enough to sus
tain a filibuster against future Bush
administration nominations they
deemed too conservative. The votes in
opposition were the most against any
attorney general in the nation’s histo
ry
“He’s wrong on civil rights, wrong
on a woman’s right to choose, wrong
on needed steps to keep guns out of
the hands of criminals and children,"
argued Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D
Mass., who led the fight against confir
mation. “And he’s the wrong choice to
be attorney general of the United
States.”
But the result was a victory for
Ashcroft and the new president
All 50 Senate Republicans and
eight Democrats voted for confirma
tion of the former Missouri senator,
whose long political career seemed
over when he lost a re-election bid last
November.
In a statement issued after his con
firmation, Ashcroft pledged he would
“confront injustice by leading a pro
fessional Justice Department that is
free from politics, that is uncompro
misingly fair."
All the votes in opposition came
from Democrats. They included not
only liberal stalwarts such as Kennedy,
but also the roster of potential presi
dential contenders who would need
support from women’s groups and
black voters to prosper in a 2004 cam
paign - Joseph Lieberman of
Connecticut, John Edwards of North
Carolina, Evan Bayh of Indiana, John
Kerry of Massachusetts and Joseph
Biden of Delaware.
Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo.,
opposed Ashcroft in her first high
profile vote since taking the seat her
late husband won from Ashcroft last
November. Ashcroft, she said, “was
just too divisive for our country."
Republicans bristled at the attacks.
“I have absolute, total, complete
confidence that he is going to be one
outstanding attorney general of the
United States,” said Don Nickles of
Oklahoma, the GOP whip.
Even before the vote, Republican
sources circulated the names of likely
top-ranking officials in a Justice
Department headed by Ashcroft.
These included Larry D. Thompson as
deputy attorney general, the number
Mark Wilson/Newsmakers
Ui. Attorney General-elect John Ashcroft arrives at the Ui. Supreme Court to be
sworn in Thursday in Washington, DX.
Ashcroft gets OK from Nelson
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON—Sen. Ben Nelson
was one of only eight Democrats to
vote Thursday for the confirmation of
John Ashcroft as attorney general.
The freshman senator said his vote
was out of deference to President
Bush’s choice and because he found
nothing to disqualify Ashcroft.
Many Democrats criticized
Ashcroft’s nomination. His critics
accused him of distorting the records
of Clinton administration nominees
James Hormel, the first openly gay
U.S. ambassador, and Ronnie White, a
black Missouri Supreme Court judge
whose chances at a federal judgeship
were scuttled by Ashcroft.
Nelson said he submitted a state
ment into the Senate record voicing
concerns about Ashcroft’s handling of
the White nomination and his accept
ance of an honorary degree from the
ultra-conservative Bob Jones
University in South Carolina.
However, Nelson said he does not
believe those arguments should dis
qualify Ashcroft from serving as attor
ney general.
Nebraska’s other senator,
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, also
voted to confirm Ashcroft. He said
Ashcroft’s critics distorted the facts
about the former Missouri senator’s
record.
two spot in the agency, and Theodore
Olsen as solicitor general, the lawyer
who represents the administration
before the Supreme Court.
Thompson, a black lawyer who
was U.S. attorney in Adanta during the
Reagan administration, was a key
adviser to Clarence Thomas during his
bitterly fought confirmation as a
Supreme Court justice in 1991.
Ashcroft’s conservative views,
including his opposition to abortion
and gun control and his fight against a
desegregation plan in St. Louis more
than a decade ago, were never in doubt
during the confirmation battle.
In four days of hearings last month,
the former state attorney general, gov
ernor and senator sought to reassure
his critics, saying he would serve “all
the people” and enforce the nation’s
laws despite his "personal prefer
ences.”
In particular, he pledged not to
seek a Supreme Court reversal of a
woman’s right to abortion, said he
would defend the constitutionality of
gun controls he opposed in the Senate
and said the civil rights division was of
particular importance to him.
Plan could give Californians relief
■ The measure will allow the state
to buy power and sell it to customers
of gas and electric companies.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — State
lawmakers approved a $10 billion
plan Thursday aimed at keeping
California's lights on while they try to
fix the state’s spiraling energy crisis.
Gov. Gray Davis was expected to
sign the measure that allows the state
to sign long-term contracts for up to
a decade to buy power and sell it to
customers of cash-strapped
Southern California Edison and
Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
The Assembly’s 54-25 vote - cast
after legislative leaders and Davis
won over a Democratic holdout and
two Republicans - came despite GOP
protests that the bill will result in
higher electricity rates. The bill failed
to pass earlier Thursday.
The two utilities are California's
largest and together serve nearly 9
million residential and business cus
tomers.
Forced by the state’s 1996 deregu
lation law to sell their power plants,
the companies say they’ve been
pushed $12.7 billion into debt by
soaring wholesale electricity prices.
The law also includes rate caps
that block them from recovering the
higher costs from customers.
The state already has spent more
than $400 million since mid-January
buying power for the utilities, which
have been denied credit by suppliers.
The legislation lets the state
spend up to $500 million buying
more electricity on the expensive
spot market - where the state has
been spending $40 million to $50
million a day - while reaching cheap
er long-term deals with wholesalers.
Many lawmakers supported the
bill reluctantly, using words such as
“hate” to describe their feelings.
Several Republicans criticized a
provision that will let the Public
Utilities Commission raise electricity
rates to repay the state for its power
purchases.
“This is a pig in a poke,” said GOP
Assemblyman Rod Pacheco, who
voted no.
“It is an unlimited rate increases
and there’s no question about that.”
California’s energy problems -
driven not just by deregulation but
high wholesale prices, high demand
and a tight supply - are expected to
persist through the summer.
The state was in its 17th straight
day with a Stage 3 alert Thursday as
power reserves hovered around 1.5
percent.
The northern two-thirds of
California had two days with rolling
blackouts last month as electricity
fell short.
PG&E told the Securities and
Exchange Commission on Thursday
that it cannot pay more than $1 bil
lion owed for power bought on the
open market and sold at lower, regu
lated prices.
The debts included $611 million
owed to the state Power Exchange
and to the Independent System
Operator, keeper of the state’s power
grid.
World/Nation
The Associated Press
■ Australia
Teen-age (jiri caught in crush
at Limp Bizkit concert dies
SYDNEY—A teen-age girl
who suffered a heart attack
while caught in a crush during a
performance by U.S. rap-rock
group Limp Bizkit died
Wednesday, five days after the
concert, a hospital spokesman
said.
Six other people were hospi
talized in the crush at a touring
multi-band event called the Big -
Day Out, which drew a crowd of
55,000.
Limp Bizkit pulled out of its
Australian tour after the crush
last Friday and criticized con
cert organizers for providing
inadequate security and safety
measures, a claim organizers
denied.
Organizers blamed Limp
Bizkits volatile fans, not a lack of
planning, for the problems, say
ing in a statement that Limp
Bizkit’s performance was "of
sufficient intensity to provoke
unprecedented and ferocious
crowd activity in front of the
stage.”
■ Russia
Ui. millionaire scheduled
to'tour1 Mir space station
MOSCOW —U.S. million
aire Dennis Tito, who hopes to
be the first “space tourist,” will
fly to the International Space
Station at the end of April, the
Russian space agency said
Tuesday.
Tito, 60, had concluded a
multimillion-dollar deal with
Russian space officials to visit
the Mir space station, and has
been in training for months
with other would-be cosmo
nauts at Star City, outside
Moscow. But his hopes were
dashed when the Russian gov
ernment decided to dump the
15-year-old orbiter in early
March.
But now the Russian space
agency has signed a new con
tract with Tito for the California
businessman to hitch a ride to
the International Space Station
on a Russian Soyuz rocket, said
Konstantin Kreidenko, a
spokesman for the Russian
Aerospace Agency.
Tito is to blast off on April 30
from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakstan with
two Russian cosmonauts.
His trip is expected to last for
• about 10 days, Kreidenko said.
■ Illinois
Couple admits knowing
twins were already adopted
CHICAGO — A British cou
ple embroiled in an internation
al dispute over twin girls said
they knew when they adopted
the youngsters that they had
been taken from anpther cou
ple.
In an interview aired
Thursday on “The Oprah
Winfrey Show,” Alan and Judith
Kilshaw said they hadn’t known
until they arrived in California
that the girls had already been
placed with Richard and Vickie
Allen of San Bernardino, Calif.
But they went ahead with
the adoption anyway because
the birth mother made it clear
she did not want the Allens to
have the babies and because
they feared the girls would be
given to someone else, they
said.
The Allens had paid Internet
adoption broker Tina Johnson
$6,000 in adoption fees; the
Kilshaws paid about $12,000.
■ New York
'Puffy'bodyguard testifies
rapper baa no weapon
NEW YORK—A former cor
rections officer who moonlight
ed as a bodyguard for Sean
“Puffy” Combs testified
Wednesday that he had never
once seen the rap impresario
carry a weapon.
Prosecution .witness
Leonard Curtis Howard said he
would never have associated
himself with Combs if the
defendant had carried a
firearm.
“If he is going to carry an ille
gal firearm, there is no reason
for me to be there,” Howard said
under cross-examination. “I’m
not going to put my job in jeop
ardy for Mr. Combs.”
