News Digest
U.S. remains cautious with North Korea
■ President Bush says he still
views the communist nation
as a threat.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — President
Bush told South Korean
President Kim Dae-jung on
Wednesday that the United
States views North Korea as a
threat and would not immedi
ately resume negotiations with
the communist regime.
Even as Kim engages in peace
negotiations with his northern
counterparts, Bush said he is
skeptical of the North Korean
leadership and wary of the
regime’s abilities to build and
spread weapons of mass destruc
tion.
“I... told the president that
we’re looking forward to, at some
point in the future, having a dia
logue with the North Koreans,
but any negotiations would
require complete verification of
the terms,” Bush said at a ques
tion-and-answer session
between meetings with the pres
ident.
Secretary of State Colin
Powell, briefing reporters while
the meetings were under way,
said negotiations will wait until
the administration completes its
review of U.S.-North Korean rela
tions. He said Bush would not be
“fooled" by North Korea.
Bush called the Oval Office
meeting with Kim “frank and
candid,” a signal that the two
countries are taking slightly dif
ferent approaches to the same
goal of a peaceful peninsula.
Under the Clinton adminis
tration, the United States came
close to normalizing relations
with North Korea in exchange for
North Korea’s ending its missile
program. Until the end of his
term, President Clinton held out
hope of visiting the communist
nation.
In advance of their meeting,
Kim had signaled his intention to
sign a peace “declaration” with
his North Korean counterparts.
Senior administration offi
cials have said privately they are
wary that Kim’s peace efforts may
be moving too quickly, with too
few concessions from North
Korea. They said Bush was mak
ing that point with Kim, though
the president went out of his way
to tell reporters that the South
Korean leader is a “realist.”
“I am concerned that the
North Koreans are shipping
weapons of mass destruction
around the world,” Bush said.
“We want to make sure their abil
ity to develop and spread
weapons of mass destruction
was in fact stopped.”
Mark Witson/Newsmakers
U.S.President George W. Bush greets South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in the Oval Office at the White House on Wednesday in
Washington, D.C.
Week's second
school shooting
wounds one
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa- - A 14-year-old girl shot a
female classmate in the shoulder Wednesday in the
cafeteria of their parochial school but dropped the
gun at the urging of another student, authorities said.
A witness said the shooter fired at the floor and the
bullet ricocheted into the victim, a classmate she had
feuded with in the past
“This is a situation of a student who was upset
with another student” police officer David Ritter said.
"This is not a random act of violence and as far as
understand there are no other targets for this vio
lence.”
The shooting happened around noon during
lunch in the cafeteria filled with about 120 students at
Bishop Neumann Junior-Senior High, a Roman
Catholic school.
Police said freshman Brent Paucke, 14, was able to
persuade the girl to drop the gun.
Paucke said he ducked under a lunchroom table
when the girl came in screaming and fired two shots,
but then recognized her from his school bus.
“She was saying, ‘I don't want to live. I should just
commit suicide right here.’ And she pointed the gun
at her head," Paucke said. “I got up and started talking
to hen I didn’t want anyone to get hurt”
Paucke said the girl pointed the gun at him from
about five feet away, and his principal told him to
back away. But he said he kept talking because he
feared more people would be hurt
"You could tell she was really mad, and she looked
like she was about to go off on everybody,” Paucke
said He said the girl eventually placed the gun on the
floor and he kicked it away.
Ritter called Paucke "very courageous.”
“We were very proud that a student would take
such a serious risk,” Ritter said
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Students return after shootings
■ Santana High School was back in
session after two were killed and 13
others injured on Monday.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SANTEE, Calif. - Students and teach
ers returned to Santana High School
Wednesday, two days after their world
was upended by a fellow student with a
handgun and a reservoir of rage.
About 150 counselors were on cam
pus - one for every7 classroom - and walls
were patched to cover the bullet holes
left by Mondays shooting.
“It’s going to be a tough day,” said
senior Brian Finkel, 18.
The school’s 1,900 students will
spend the day talking with teachers,
administrators, counselors and each
other. There are no immediate plans to
resume regular classes.
“The first priority will be to begin the
healing process,” said Granger Ward,
superintendent of the Grossmont Union
High School District. “There’s a lot of
anger. There’s a lot of grief. There's a lot of
sadness."
Two students died and 13 people
were wounded in the attack. Another
was injured while driving away in a car.
Three victims who remained hospital
ized Wednesday were reported in good
condition.
Charles Andrew Williams, 15, was
scheduled to be arraigned on murder
and other charges Wednesday afternoon
in San Diego.
Three students who might have
known about Williams' alleged plans
were kept out of classes while district
officials investigate, Ward said.
Among them is Vanessa Willis, a 15
year-old neighbor ofWilliams who heard
his threats to start a shooting spree but
thought they were a joke.
She said she didn’t care if students
were upset that she has spoken up about
classmates teasing Williams.
"I feel bad for everyone that was hurt
and everything, but they want to be mad
at me.... They don’t know' the whole
story,” she said.
Few signs remain of the deadly gun
fire that erupted two days ago.
Bullet holes that riddled a bathroom
where the massacre began have been
patched and covered with paint, and all
traces of blood have been scrubbed from
the floors.
“I w'ant to talk to a lot of friends that I
haven’t talked to because I’m worried. A
lot of my friends saw’ everything, and
they are pretty upset about it,” said fresh
man Ashley Hart, 14. “I’m not afraid. I’m
fine. What upsets me is when my friends
are crying.”
Investigators said Williams, known
as Andy, was filled with anger when he
was arrested.
Friends have said he wras constantly
picked on and was so skinny that some
people called him “Anorexic Andy.”
Such harassment doesn’t excuse the
shooting, said freshman Jake Clarke. 14.
“You know everybody gets picked
on,” he said.
Williams’ older brother also told The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the 15
year-old wras often teased.
"He has big ears and he’s real skinny,”
said Michael Williams, 20, a student at
the Art Institute of Atlanta. “People like to
pick on him. It was like that as long as I
could remember.”
But Michael Williams said he never
imagined his brother would react by
shooting anyone.
The suspect, w'hose parents were
divorced 10 years ago, lived with his
father, while Michael Williams stayed
“People like to pick on him.
It was like that as long as I
could remember. ”
Michael Williams
shooter’s brother
with their mother in South Carolina
before leaving for college.
He said he last saw his brother during
the winter holidays.
“Everything was fine. I don’t know
what happened after Christmas,” he
said.
The shooting also surprised friends
in Brunswick, Md„ where he lived before
moving to Southern California last sum
mer.
"I’ve never seen Andy get mad at
anyone,” his best friend, 16-year-old
Scon Bryan, told the Los Angeles Times.
He recalled Williams watching news
of the 1999 Columbine shootings: “He
thought it was terrible, that it was just so
sad.”
Art Fainveather, principal of
Brunswick Middle School, said Andy
Williams was on the honor roll there.
"His grades were always good,” he
said. “He seemed to have a lot of friends,
and he appeared to be w'ell-adjusted.”
Kathleen Seek said the family left
Maryland after someone broke into their
home, fired a BB into the boy's television
and wrecked his backyard tree house.
The teen-ager allegedly opened fire
Monday morning, shooting indiscrimi
nately at the passing students in an open
yard.
According to authorities, Williams
used a .22-caliber long rifle revolver that
belonged to his father, wiio told investi
gators it was kept in a locked cabinet
Sharon ready to begin quest for peace
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM - Ariel Sharon took
over as Israel’s prime minister
Wednesday with a mandate to end
months of bloodshed.
He said his broad-based coalition
was ready to make peace with the
Palestinians if they “abandon the way
of violence, terrorism and incitement.”
Sharon, the nation’s fifth prime
minister in six years, heads a large and
unwieldy government that inherits the
Palestinian uprising, a broken-down
peace process and an anxiety-ridden
Israel.
In a speech to the Knesset, Sharon
said his coalition would be ready for
“painful compromises” toward peace
with the Palestinians, but not “under
the pressure of violence and terror.”
Later, parliament approved
Sharon’s “national unity government"
by a vote of 72 to 21.
Immediately afterward, Sharon
rose to the podium and declared his
allegiance, officially taking office, to an
unusual round of applause from the
floor.
Weather
TODAY TOMORROW
Sunny Sunny
high 44, low 18 high 57, low 28
In his speech before the vote,
Sharon promised his government
would work with the Palestinians.
“If the Palestinians choose the path
of peace ... they will find me and my
government a sincere and true part
ner,” he said.
Sharon noted that he has promised
to build no more settlements on dis
puted lands - a departure from his past
as a hard-line patron of the settler
movement. But he did not outline how
he would make good on campaign
promises to restore stability to a land
rattled by five months of violence.
In recent weeks, his low-key pro
nouncements have focused on dealing
with the immediate problems of halt
ing the fighting with the Palestinians
and establishing a government sturdy
enough to withstand the constant buf
feting of Israel’s unruly politics.
A former general who won glory
and notoriety' for repeated confronta
tions with Israel’s Arab neighbors,
Sharon rejects the grand ambitions of
his predecessor, Ehud Barak, whose
government crumbled amid his failed
attempt to strike a comprehensive
peace deal with the Palestinians.
Sharon, who has consistently
opposed major Israeli concessions to
the Palestinians, says the most he
would countenance is a long-term
interim agreement. A final peace deal
is years, perhaps even a generation
away, he has often said.
Sharon, who has never shaken
“If the Palestinians choose
the path of peace ... they
will find me and my
government a sincere and
true partner.”
Ariel Sharon
Israeli prime minister
hands with Yasser Arafat, blames the
Palestinian leader for inciting his peo
ple to violence and failing to curb the
militants. The Palestinians, mean
while, remain deeply suspicious of
Sharon.
“The new Israeli government must
choose between continuing in the pol
icy of talks or continuing its recent pol
icy of blockades and siege and escala
tion.” said Nabil Aburdeneh, a
spokesman for .Arafat.
Sharon “wants to achieve a series of
interim agreements (with the
Palestinians), which is not really a
peace agenda,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a
Palestinian spokeswoman. “We don’t
expect to see any progress on the peace
front, and I hold no hopes for this gov
ernment.”
Hamas, a militant Islamic group,
threatened to greet Sharon with an
onslaught of bombs.
The group claimed responsibility
for one of two fatal attacks in the past
week.
World/Nation
The Associated Press
■ Washington
Officer dies in shooting after
stopping three teen-agers
DES MOINES - A police offi
cer was shot and killed early
Wednesday after stopping four
teen-agers walking along a high
way, police said.
The suspects, believed to
range in age from 15 to 18,
remained at large, Police Sgt.
Steve Wieland said. The search for
them involved officers from juris
dictions extending from Tacoma
to Seattle, he said.
No weapon was found, and
Wieland said he didn’t know if
any bullet casings were recov
ered.
The 33-year-old officer, a vet
eran of six years on the force,
apparently stopped the pedestri
ans about five miles south of
Seattle-Tacoma International
Airport. He told a dispatcher by
radio that he recognized one of
them from an earlier felony case,
Wieland said.
A second officer arrived
shortly afterward and found the
officer by the road.
The wounded officer, who
was married and had a 2-year-old
child, died at a hospital, police
said.
■ New York
Cabbies find minivans don't
hold up underworkload
Send them back to the soccer
moms.
The minivan, symbol of sub
urbia, can’t cut it on the mean
streets of New York, say a number
of taxi fleet owners who are phas
ing out the vehicles.
The minivan, they say, breaks
down too often under pothole
pounding and round-the-clock
cab driving.
“They just flat-out haven’t
worked out,” said Michael Woloz,
a spokesman for the
Metropolitan Taxi Cab Board of
Trade, which represents 18 fleet
owners. “Minivans can’t hold up
on city streets.”
Allen Kaplan, vice president
ofTeam Systems, one of the larger
fleet owners with more than 300
cabs, said the minivans’ frames
“are not made for this type of
work. We also have a lot of trouble
with the doors and the hinges.”
Kaplan, whose company
bought 20 minivans in 1998 and
has already retired six, said the
remainder will be off the street in
the next few months.
■ Arkansas
California couple gives up
fight for twins'adoption
LITTLE ROCK - The
California couple who fought a
British couple for the right to
adopt 8-month-old twin girls
bowed out of the fight Wednesday
to concentrate on regaining cus
tody of a 2-year-old boy.
Richard and Vickie Allen of
Highland. Calif., lost custody of
the boy, whom they are trying to
adopt, after .Alien wras accused
last week of molesting two family
baby sitters.
Allen, 49, pleaded innocent.
On Tuesday, the Arkansas
judge who had approved the
British couple’s adoption of the
little girls nullified his decision,
saying the adoption was
obtained fraudulently.
Until Wednesday, the Allens
had been battling Alan and Judith
Kilshaw of Britain for custody of
the girls, who had been put up for
adoption over the Internet.
Richard Allen said in a tele
phone interview Wednesday that
he and his wife will no longer fight
for the twins.
■ Illinois
Coach fired after argument
led to using meat cleaver
ROCKFORD - A coach has
been fired because she tried to
take a meat cleaver into school
after an argument at a junior high
volleyball game.
Toni Gay, a teacher’s aide at
the Rockford Environmental
Science Academy, was arrested
Saturday and charged with
unlawful use of a weapon on
school property and disorderly
conduct.
“We never would accept such
behavior from students, and we
shouldn't accept such behavior
from staff who are here to set an
example," said Rockford Public
School spokesman Jim Jennings.
