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(07/25/02 8:23pm)
MERRILLVILLE, Ind. -- As Arthur Andersen struggles to survive the Enron scandal and a federal indictment, two of Indiana's most highly scrutinized industries must decide whether to continue using the troubled accounting firm.\nAt stake for northwest Indiana's energy giant, NiSource, and three riverboat casinos are public trust and credibility.\nNone has said publicly that it will fire Andersen, but analysts say it's a possibility. Financial observers agree that highly regulated industries such as utilities and casinos must preserve confidence in their accounting practices.\n"If (a casino's) auditor is under criminal indictment, it creates a negative perception from the public," Cory Aronovitz of the Casino Law Group in Chicago told the Post-Tribune for a story published Sunday.\nBill Keegan, spokesman for NiSource, the parent company of Northern Indiana Public Service Co., declined to elaborate on the corporation's relationship with Andersen.\nState utility regulators say they are unlikely to intervene in NiSource's choice of auditors.\n"I really doubt it's something we would get in the middle of," said Mary Beth Fisher, an Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission spokeswoman. "We don't micromanage these people."\nAndersen is accused of shredding tons of documents and deleting computer files related to bankrupt Enron. The firm pleaded innocent to those charges last week.\nAndersen is the dominant auditor for the gambling industry and serves three casinos in northern Indiana: Harrah's, Trump and Horseshoe.\nHarrah's operates a casino in East Chicago. Company spokesman Gary Thompson declined to comment on whether the casino is seeking another auditor.\nAt Trump, which runs a casino in Gary, Ind., corporate treasurer John P. Burke said the company plans for Andersen to complete the casino's audit for the year, but executives are prepared to change accountants if needed.\nKirk Saylor, senior vice president and chief financial officer for Horseshoe Gaming Corp., which runs a casino in Hammond, Ind., said the company may begin searching for a new accountant, depending on developments.\n"More than likely I would assume we're going to have to change because they're going to not be in business anymore," Saylor said.\nThe casinos might not have a choice. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement last week filed a motion with its regulating board that would prohibit New Jersey casinos, their parent companies and their affiliates from using Andersen as an auditor.\nJack Thar, executive director of the Indiana Gaming Commission, said he will honor such an order, meaning Harrah's, Horseshoe and Trump would be forced to find new auditors.\nIn the meantime, Thar has ordered all Indiana casinos to submit a written report detailing their relationships with their auditors, even if they do not use Andersen.\nState gambling regulators have the authority to ban casinos from using Andersen, but they plan to wait before issuing any order.\n"We're dealing with an issue that could cause tens of thousands of people to be unemployed, so we'll go slowly with that," Thar said.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
TERRE HAUTE -- The federal government's decision to seek the death penalty against the only person charged in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks could lead to Zacarias Moussaoui's imprisonment here at the U.S. Penitentiary.\nThe prison is home to the nation's only federal death row, and was the site of last June's execution of Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City.\nThe Justice Department announced Thursday it will seek the death penalty against Moussaoui, a French flight student of Moroccan descent who goes on trial in the fall in federal court in Alexandria, Va.\nThe 33-year-old is accused of participating in a conspiracy before the attacks and prosecutors will try to show ties to other accused terrorists.\nTo win a death sentence, prosecutors must convince jurors that Moussaoui is just as guilty of the crimes as the 19 hijackers aboard three U.S. jetliners.\nFour of the six counts brought against Moussaoui carry a maximum sentence of death.\nIn Terre Haute, officials already are considering the possibility of housing Moussaoui at the penitentiary.\n"We have thought about it and talked about it," said 1st Sgt. Jeff Nicoson of the Indiana State Police Post in Terre Haute.\nSince McVeigh's execution by lethal injection, "those things do catch our attention more than they used to," Nicoson said, referring to rare federal death penalty cases.\nThe experience officials in Terre Haute gained through the heightened security and media scrutiny surrounding McVeigh's execution could come in handy if Moussaoui is convicted and sentenced to death.\n"We did it once," Nicoson told the Tribune-Star. "We can do it again."\nThe city's assistant police chief, Jerry Arney, agreed.\n"I don't think it would be detrimental to this city," Arney said of the possibility of Moussaoui being executed in Terre Haute.\nLeanna Turner, spokeswoman for the U.S. Penitentiary, said security procedures already in place would be sufficient for any inmate -- including one labeled as a terrorist.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Bush administration, which expressed no regret when the Venezuelan military ousted the country's elected president last week, advised Hugo Chavez on Sunday to make good use of a second chance to govern. \n"We do hope that Chavez recognizes that the whole world is watching and that he takes advantage of this opportunity to right his own ship, which has been moving, frankly, in the wrong direction for quite a long time," said Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser. \nShe said Chavez "needs to respect constitutional processes" during this tumultuous period in Venezuela, the No. 3 supplier of oil to the United States and the world's fourth biggest exporter. \nChavez returned Sunday to the presidential palace in Caracas, the capital, after he was freed by his military captors. Two days earlier, army commanders had forced him from office. \n"I hope that Hugo Chavez takes the message that his people sent him, that his own policies are not working for the Venezuela people, that he's dealt with him in a high-handed fashion," Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press." \nRice said she hopes Chavez "understands this is a time for national reflection, that he recognizes it's time for him to reflect on how Venezuela got to where it is." \nAt the time Chavez was ousted, the White House put the blame on Chavez because of attempts to violently put down a demonstration. Bush's spokesman said the Venezuelan government "suppressed what was a peaceful demonstration of the people…It led very quickly to a combustible situation in which Chavez resigned." \nBut Chavez's family, supporters and former government officials insisted he never resigned as president, as the interim president, Pedro Carmona, and Venezuela's high command claimed. \nChavez had befriended Cuban President Fidel Castro and turned up in Iraq and Libya -- all countries on the State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism. In February, Secretary of State Colin Powell said it was "strange" that Chavez would see fit to visit such countries. \nChavez also angered Washington with his strong opposition to the U.S. war in Afghanistan. \n"This is no time for a witch hunt," Rice said. "This is a time for national reconciliation in Venezuela"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
EVANSVILLE -- Two groups critical of the proposal to extend Interstate 69 from Indianapolis to Evansville are denouncing the state's payment of more than $750,000 to a consulting firm.\nBecause of the consulting fees, the cost of the Indiana Department of Transportation's study of five routes for the highway has jumped more than 15 percent to $9.1 million.\n"It's outrageous," said Andy Knott, air and energy policy director for the Hoosier Environmental Council. "It's hard to find the words. At a time when state agencies are cutting services to the bone, INDOT is going out and spending more money on a boondoggle project."\nThe money was paid to Bernardin, Lochmueller & Associates, the Evansville consulting firm preparing an environmental-impact study that is expected to be complete sometime this year.\nINDOT Commissioner Bryan Nicol said new federal regulations made it necessary to spend additional money.\nMost of the money paid for deeper studies of historic buildings and archaeological sites, required by federal regulations, said Mike Grovak, I-69 project manager for the consulting firm.\nGrovak said the regulations require an extensive outreach to "consulting parties," including groups as diverse as local government officials and out-of-state American Indian tribes with interests in archaeological resources.\n"It seems to me, if we skirt environmental rules and regulations, we'd be criticized for that," Nicol told the Evansville Courier and Press for a story published Friday. "It's unfair for those groups that have their own particular route they're promoting to attack us for complying with federal rules and regulations."\nEnvironmental groups advocate an I-69 route that uses U.S. 41 and Interstate 70 through Terre Haute because they say it would be less expensive and do less harm to farmland and wildlife.\n"Of course they should comply with historic preservation laws, if that's part of the (environmental-impact) statement," Knott said. "The question still remains: Is the taxpayer getting their money's worth out of these studies? I believe (the) answer is no."\nSandra Tokarski, a founding member of the Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads, was also critical.\n"I say 'Too bad. Figure it out, guys,'" Tokarski said. "Who do you know that can just say, 'Whoops! We're practically $2 million over budget and not even finished yet.'"\nNicol said INDOT has done its share in cutting government spending.\n"Nobody's offering to do all this work for free," Nicol said of the environmental study. "And to preserve the integrity of the project, we need a top-notch work product"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Bar association lobbies for prisoner's release\nGARY -- The James C. Kimbrough Bar Association is lobbying the Indiana Parole Board for the release of a Kokomo man serving a life sentence for murder.\nThe group, the largest and oldest black bar association in Indiana, says Charles Lockert, who is black, has been treated unfairly by the state's criminal justice system.\nLockert's last attempt for parole was denied in fall 2001. His next scheduled parole hearing is in five years.\nVeteran Lake County defense attorney Darnail Lyles, a member of the Kimbrough Bar Association, has been representing Lockert before the parole board since 1989.\n"I committed myself and services to him because in my legal opinion, Charles did not and has not gotten a fair shake from the criminal justice system," Lyles told the Post-Tribune of Merrillville for a story Sunday.\nLockert was one of three people charged in the kidnapping and murder of 33-year-old Connie Jo Fivecoate of Kokomo and her 8-year-old son in July 1974. He pleaded guilty to felony murder and received a life sentence in February 1975.\nOne of the other defendants, 35-year-old Ralph Edward Murphy, was convicted of murder and is serving a life sentence. At a parole hearing for Lockert in 1992, Murphy testified that Lockert did not shoot the victims or have a gun that night.\nBut the parole board has denied Lockert's parole request because a provision in his plea agreement allowed prosecutors to charge him with a pending murder charge if he sought post-conviction relief.\nThat charge eventually was dropped, but Lockert remains behind bars.\nValarie Parker, vice chairwoman of the Indiana Parole Board, said Lockert has not been released because of the nature and circumstances of the case.\nPolice still seeking escaped Orange County inmates\nPAOLI, Ind. -- Police were searching for a car Saturday they suspect was stolen the previous night by three inmates who escaped from the Orange County Jail.\nThe car, a dark blue 1988 Oldsmobile four-door with a damaged grille, was stolen sometime after 10 p.m. Friday night near Livonia in southern Indiana, police said.\nThe car, which has a license plate number 88B2375, was taken from within a mile of where the men ditched a van they fled in following the jail break Thursday night, an Orange County dispatcher told The Associated Press.\nAuthorities said Jeffrey Hayden, 19; Kerry Silvers, 28; and Larry Holden, 21, used a fake gun made of toilet paper and a hand-made knife to overpower two officers and escape from the Orange County Jail in Paoli. Paoli is about 45 miles northwest of Louisville, Ky., on the eastern edge of the Hoosier National Forest.\nSilvers, of Springville, also had escaped from the Lawrence County Jail in 2000. He was later caught in Orange County.\nAuthorities said the men were considered armed and dangerous and urged area residents to lock their homes and vehicles.\n"People are kind of scared right now," said the dispatcher, who identified himself as Doug but declined to give his last name.\nTwo of the men have ties in southern Indiana, while one has links to Texas and another has a girlfriend who lives in Indianapolis, he said.\nPossible cases of cheating could derail graduations\nMERRILLVILLE, Ind. -- Seniors at two high schools in northwest Indiana may be ruled ineligible to graduate if investigators determine they cheated on a state-mandated test.\nOfficials at the Indiana Department of Education say they will decide by the end of the school year whether students cheated on the ISTEP exam at Lew Wallace and West Side high schools in Gary.\nIf cheating is found, seniors who just passed the test would not be able to graduate unless they won an appeal or fulfilled the state's 40 core requirements, a mix of academic credits, attendance and grades.\nThe district would also be forced to correct the problem, which could include firing employees. Otherwise, the two schools will not receive next year's ISTEP materials, said Mary Tiede Wilhelmus, a spokeswoman for the department.\nQuestions about the tests arose after graders noticed strong similarities in ISTEP essay sections. Many of the essays were nearly exact replicas, aside from adjective changes.\nWes Bruce, state director of assessment, said the similarities could indicate that tests were opened too soon, that teachers coaxed students improperly or that students used prior tests as practice.\nThe school district's spokeswoman, Chelsea Stalling, said West Side and Wallace officials began collecting ISTEP prep materials, manuals and other test-related items for the investigation.\nIf the state finds an appropriate explanation, "that would be the end of it," Wilhemus said. If not, state officials could seek revocation of licenses for some teachers and administrators. The schools could also lose their accreditation.\nStudents insisted there had been no cheating.\n"I understand that the percentage of students that passed ISTEP went from 19 to 51 in (a year)," Wallace student Kia Sease told the Post-Tribune for a story published Saturday. "Couldn't it possibly mean that we have worked very hard to improve our education"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
INDIANAPOLIS -- As next week's primary draws closer, some lawmakers and minority advocates are expressing renewed concern that the Indiana General Assembly does not accurately represent the state's varied demographics.\nRetired, college-educated white men dominate the 150-member Legislature. Most are in their 50s and have helped shape state laws for more than a decade.\nWomen, who outnumber men in the state, are a distinct minority.\nThere's just one Hispanic to represent that booming population. And Indiana's mostly blue-collar work force is under-represented in an institution mostly made up of retirees, attorneys and educators.\n"It's about what life experiences you bring to the table. I could not effectively represent rural Indiana because I don't have those experiences, just as someone from rural Indiana may not understand the needs of the inner-city or African-Americans," said Rep. Bill Crawford, a black Democrat from Indianapolis.\nBut the makeup of the Legislature is unlikely to change much after this year's elections. Lawmakers acknowledge that the new districts they drew last year were designed in part to protect incumbents.\nThere are some opportunities. Because of retirements, voters will elect at least 13 new lawmakers in November. That, some advocates hope, will mean more opportunities for women.\n"We definitely need to see more women in the Legislature -- we need a Legislature that's more representative of women's voices and concerns," Tracy Horn, legislative coordinator for the Indiana National Organization for Women, told The Indianapolis Star for a story published Sunday.\nThere are just 26 female lawmakers out of 150 -- or 17 percent. That's far lower than the 52 percent of voting-age Hoosiers who are women.\nRep. Mary Kay Budak, R-LaPorte, was the only woman in her freshmen legislative class of 1980, making her one of the longest-serving females in the General Assembly. Only Rep. Phyllis Pond, R-New Haven, has served longer -- for 24 years.\nBudak saw the number of women lawmakers dive in 1996, when five female legislators lost their seats.\n"We just haven't seen the numbers pick up since then," Budak said. "They need to, because women bring a different perspective."\nShe said the time commitment also keeps women away.\nAnd that's keeping average working folks away from politics too, laments Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Garton, R-Columbus. A lawmaker's most common occupation used to be attorney -- now it's retirement.\n"That's a concern because you want a cross-section of the public, and we're losing that," said Garton, who works as a dean for Ivy Tech State College.\nThe percentage of Hispanic lawmakers also is lopsided. Nearly four percent of Indiana's population is Hispanic -- and that number is growing. Yet Rep. John Aguilera, D-East Chicago, is the only Hispanic in the Legislature.\nThe General Assembly does a better job of mirroring the number of black Hoosiers. About eight percent of Indiana residents are black -- about the same percentage that serve in the General Assembly.\nStill, Crawford hopes there will be improvement.\n"Every segment of the population ought to have a seat at the table," Crawford said, "and that isn't always happening"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
MCCORDSVILLE, Ind. -- Farmers will be keeping a wary eye on Indiana skies this week as they wait for fields to dry out after a soaking string of storms that have delayed planting.\nCorn planting often begins in the third week of April. By this time of the month about seven percent of the crop is typically in the ground, according to data kept by the Indiana Agricultural Statistics Service.\nThis year, only two percent of the crop has been planted.\nRay Helms knows the frustration of waiting.\nFor weeks, Helms' fields in western Hancock County in central Indiana had been too wet to till. Then, more rain fell.\n"I'm feeling nervous," Helms said as he repaired an implement last week. "If we're out another week, we'll really get behind."\nProduction should not suffer as long as seeds are in the ground by May 10, state agricultural statistician Ralph Gann told The Indianapolis Star. But given the heavier-than-usual rain this month, that date could be in jeopardy.\nIt could take up to a week for wet fields to dry enough to allow planting. Additional rainfall will cause more delays and could force farmers into a race to give corn and soybean plants a chance to beat summer heat.\n"You only get one chance to plant," Helms said.\nVirtually no fieldwork has happened from Fort Wayne to Cincinnati, said Stan Hicks, chief operating officer at Harvest Land Cooperative in Richmond. The co-op has 21 stores between the cities selling herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer.\nPurdue University extension corn specialist Bob Nielsen said Indiana farmers are capable of planting nearly all their corn in two weeks, so there's still hope of nearly finishing before May 10.\nLarge operators are most likely to be slowed by the weather. While they have bigger equipment, they also are encumbered by logistics of moving equipment among fields sometimes dozens of miles apart.\nUntil the weather improves, farmers are fixing equipment and puttering with odd jobs.\nDoyne Lowder, who also farms near McCordsville, is fixing up an old sprayer for applying herbicides to fence rows. He found time to joke about meteorologists.\n"Right now they can pick rain and just about be right," he quipped. "It can be dry, and they can predict rain and be wrong"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
FORT WAYNE -- Kroger Co. and the union that represents more than 2,000 of its workers in Fort Wayne, South Bend and Decatur, Ill., have reached tentative contract agreements.\nThe three agreements with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 700, were reached hours before a midnight deadline Saturday. They are scheduled to be put to a ratification vote by Tuesday.\nUnion and company officials declined to discuss specifics of the agreements, except to say that the agreements include wage increases.\nCincinnati-based Kroger is a Fortune 500 company with fiscal 2001 sales of about $50.1 billion. The company is ranked No. 1 in its industry, according to Fortune magazine.\nThe two sides had been battling over health plan contributions until the company took the issue off the table Saturday morning.\nKroger had wanted union employees to begin making monthly contributions to the health plan, which company officials said was necessary for Kroger to remain competitive.\nKroger spokesman Jeff Golc, though, said Saturday that other issues in the agreements allowed Kroger to remain competitive without demanding that workers pay into the health plan.\n"We think the negotiations were successful," union spokesman Rian Wathen said. "We believe the employees will be pleased that this is a package that not only preserves that health insurance but additionally offers them wage increases and addresses some other outstanding issues that we had on the table"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
State education officials said more than 230 Indiana schools have failed to meet national standards for improving the academic achievement of low-income students.\nAs a result of those schools' failings, parents whose children attend one of the schools will be allowed to transfer to higher-performing ones beginning this fall under a new federal mandate.\nStill, officials do not think large numbers of parents will seek to have their children transferred under the new mandate, which builds on the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act.\n"With this new law ... there's a huge consequence that didn't exist before," said Linda Miller, assistant superintendent of special populations for the Indiana Department of Education.\nThe mandate, passed by Congress last year as part of President Bush's "No Child Left Behind Act," makes major changes in state testing, school accountability and teacher quality.\nIt also authorizes allocating grant money to 45 Grade K-12 education programs, the largest of which is Title 1 -- a program intended to help keep at-risk children from failing.\nOf the state's 824 Title 1 schools, 237 have been flagged for their failure to improve based on student scores on the ISTEP-Plus exam.\nThe mandate places all schools under tougher accountability measures tied to federal funding. While some educators believe those aims may be worthy, they believe the sweeping reform law is flawed.\n"That every single child will meet the standards they've established is exactly as likely as George Bush eradicating every terrorist from the earth," said H. Douglas Williams, superintendent of Perry Township Schools in Marion County.\nSchools receive federal education grants based on the percentage of low-income children enrolled. Indiana will receive $834 million in 2003, including $170.2 million for Title I grants for 287 eligible school districts serving 110,434 children.\nDuncan Pat Pritchett, superintendent of one of those districts -- Indianapolis Public Schools -- worries that the new law will create inequities.\n"We need to make all schools better, not just the schools receiving Title I funds," he said.\nOther school districts are struggling to comply, including South Bend Community Schools, which has eight of its 24 elementary schools labeled for improvement. The 21,603-student St. Joseph County district is under a federal desegregation order and needs to close two schools.\n"That has really complicated the issue," said district official Janet Carey, adding that parental school choices are limited.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Nine indicted in alleged drug ring\nBLOOMINGTON -- Nine people have been accused in a federal indictment of taking part in a drug trafficking ring that authorities say moved crack cocaine from Detroit to Bloomington.\nFour of the nine people have been arrested. However, U.S. Attorney Melanie Conour declined to identify them Friday and would not say whether they were still in custody.\nThe indictments were issued in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis Jan. 24 against a mix of Detroit and Bloomington residents, but were only recently made public.\nAll nine individuals are accused of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute powder cocaine and 50 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing cocaine base, commonly known as crack.\nThey are accused of conspiring to operate an illegal drug operation from November 1999 to Feb. 19, 2001, according to the indictment.\nAt least two of the defendants from Bloomington have been arrested in the past by local authorities on drug-related or other charges.\nAuthorities previously have said that a tightly structured group of dealers from Detroit had become a major source of the crack cocaine supply in Bloomington.\nProsecutors said the organization consisted of friends and family members who operated the drug ring like a franchise.\nPoultry truck explosion deliberate\nBLOOMINGTON -- An explosion that damaged a truck at a poultry plant was deliberate, authorities said.\nNo one was injured in the explosion Friday at the Sims Poultry Plant.\nThe refrigerated truck was apparently rigged to explode and connected by a trail of gasoline to other trucks in the plant parking lot, said Jeff Groh, an agent from the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. The other trucks did not catch fire, however.\nCompany owner Richard Dunbar was baffled by the event. "I'm just at a loss to say as to who would want to do this to us," he said. "It's kind of scary. When you think what could have been, we're very lucky."\nATF agent Groh declined to speculate on a motive but said the company had been the target of animal rights activists in the past.\nThe plant, which employs five people, packages chicken for distribution for area retailers. No slaughtering takes place at the site.\nIndiana businesses receiving tax bills\nINDIANAPOLIS -- Tax bills sent out last week to more than 100,000 Indiana businesses have prompted thousands of complaints from business owners caught off guard by the billings.\nThe little-known tax, which state lawmakers quietly approved last year to fund worker-training programs, is due at month's end. Over the next three years, businesses will pay about $59 million into the programs.\n"It has generated a lot of questions and concerns, but some people are calling because they're interested in accessing the training money," said department spokesman Patrick Murphy.\nReport: Indiana guard ranks near bottom\nINDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Army National Guard ranks near the bottom in the nation in preparedness, with more than a third of its soldiers ill-prepared for military duty, a report concludes.\nThirty-five percent of Indiana Army Guard soldiers do not meet the individual training requirements outlined in their military job titles, according to a report by federal Guard officials.\nThe report was prepared for The Indianapolis Star at the newspaper's request and detailed in Sunday's edition.\nThe Star reported that not only is Indiana 43rd among the 54 national guards, so many soldiers have left the Indiana Army Guard in recent years that it now has one of the largest manpower shortages among state guards.\nDuring the past four years, Indiana's Army Guard has shrunk by more than 10 percent. \nIndiana's adjutant general, Maj. Gen. George A. Buskirk Jr., acknowledges the problems, but believes the situation is not dire.\n"We are not going to hell in a handbasket," Buskirk said.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Sarcastic comic Jack Black and comely "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" star Sarah Michelle Gellar have been tapped to host the MTV Movie Awards show. \nMTV President Van Toffler said Friday he hoped teaming the outrageous comic rocker with the attractive vampire slayer "will make for an explosive and unpredictable show." \nThe music network encourages outrageousness during the program, with 2000 host Sarah Jessica Parker appearing clad only in a towel at one point, and Hugh Jackman and John Travolta accepting a dare last year to flash their bellies onstage. \nBlack, star of "Shallow Hal" and singer with the folk-rock duo Tenacious D, was nominated for an MTV movie award for playing a persnickety music lover in 2000's "High Fidelity." \nGellar played the part of an oversexed, conniving teenager in 1999's "Cruel Intentions," winning MTV Movie Awards for best female performance and best kiss (with actress Selma Blair).
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
FRANKLIN -- A gun enthusiast is challenging a 21-year-old county ordinance, claiming that it violates his constitutional right to bear arms.\nThe ordinance prohibits anyone except a police officer from carrying a loaded gun within 500 feet of a plated subdivision in unincorporated Johnson County.\nJohn Lowe claims the ordinance is too broad and could prohibit a resident near a subdivision from displaying an assembled gun in a case hanging on the wall of his home.\n"Do I really think they'll enforce it that way? No," Lowe told The Daily Journal for a story Wednesday. "But they could. They could enforce it that way."\nA lack of clear intent of the central Indiana county's ordinance is one of the reasons Lowe filed a complaint this month asking a judge to rule that the ordinance is unconstitutional.\nLowe's suit claims that the ordinance violates his right to liberty and property provided in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and his right to bear arms for self-defense provided in the preamble to the Indiana Constitution.\nThe suit also cites a state law passed in 1994 that says local governments "may not regulate in any manner the ownership, possession, sale, transfer or transportation of firearms."\nCounty attorney Tom Jones said he had not yet had much time to review Lowe's suit. He planned to search for legal precedent stating that the reasonable regulation of firearms is constitutional, he said.\n"Either I'll find a law or I won't," Jones said. "If I do, we'll win it. If I don't, we won't."\nLowe wasn't aware of the local ordinance until Johnson County sheriff's deputies arrived at his home west of Greenwood in May 2001 after a neighbor complained that he was shooting in his back yard.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
WASHINGTON -- The White House threat to veto the Senate's $31.4 billion anti-terrorism bill is inconsistent with recent Bush administration warnings of possible new attacks by the al-Qaida network, the Senate majority leader said Wednesday.\n"It's troubling that the administration would say that we're spending too much on homeland defense, that we're spending too much on the effort on the war on terror ... given the fears generated by the pronouncements (by the administration)," Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., told reporters.\nWhite House officials issued the veto threat Tuesday, complaining that the measure exceeds the $27.1 billion request that President Bush sent Congress in March. The election-year squabble pits administration efforts to limit spending at a time when federal deficits are returning against Democratic attempts to beef up domestic counter-terror initiatives.\n"For the administration to say, 'Well, we want to respond but not that much,' is a hard sell to the American people," Daschle said.\nSenators from both parties lined up to offer amendments. They included an effort by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to add $150 million for summer schools and a plan by bipartisan fiscal conservatives to set spending limits for the next five years, which both seemed likely to lose.\n"We're going to go after this pork barrel spending and go after it and after it and after it," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was preparing amendments to cut items from the bill.\nDaschle set a procedural vote that was likely on Thursday to limit debate on the measure. He seemed likely to prevail, which could mean the Senate would finish the bill this week.\nIn Tuesday's only roll call, the Senate voted 91-4 to drop a ban the bill had included on new emergency loans for airlines until Oct. 1. The loans are part of a bailout program for air carriers enacted just after the Sept. 11 attacks.\nThe vote was a major boon to financially ailing US Airways, which says it needs a $1 billion emergency loan this summer. By erasing the $393 million the loan restrictions were supposed to save, the overall bill's cost grew to $31.4 billion.\nThe House anti-terror bill would block new loans until October, but aides predict the eventual House-Senate compromise will omit the restrictions.\nThe counterterror legislation is dominated by funds for defense, intelligence, aviation safety, local law enforcement and aid to help New York rebuild from the attacks. Most Senate add-ons are for domestic security programs.\n "The Senate bill includes scores of unneeded items that total billions of dollars -- all classified as an 'emergency,'" said a White House statement on the bill. "The bill adds unrequested funds for numerous programs and projects throughout nearly all of the federal agencies."\n Projects the administration found objectionable include $100 million to secure Russian nuclear weapons and $315 million for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention construction, which the White House said could not possibly be spent this year.\nThe spending is for the remaining months of the federal fiscal year that runs through Sept. 30.\nSen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, top Republican on the Appropriations Committee and co-author of the bill, called the veto threat "just a tactic of the administration."\n"We'll work this out (by the time a compromise bill is finished)," he said.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Singer R. Kelly indicted, arrested\nCHICAGO -- R&B star R. Kelly was arrested today in Florida after Chicago authorities filed child pornography charges alleging that he appears on a videotape having sex with an underage girl. "I can confirm that he was arrested in Florida," Kelly spokesman Allan Mayer said. A spokeswoman for the sheriff's office in Polk County, Florida, would only say that Kelly had been arrested there. Kelly was indicted in Chicago on 21 counts of child pornography earlier in the day after officials said their investigation of a videotape showed the Grammy winner having sex with an underage girl. The videotape purporting to show Kelly and an underage girl has been circulating widely in major cities, and has been a topic among R&B fans and musicians.\nPowell wants new leadership in Iraq\nWASHINGTON -- The Bush administration wants new leadership in Iraq even if Saddam Hussein allows U.N. inspectors to resume their search for weapons of mass destruction, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday. President Bush has declared Saddam a menace and pledged to remove him from power, although the administration says it has not decided how or when that goal will be achieved. \nBush has said all options are available, including a military campaign to overthrow Saddam if he continued to deny admission to the weapons inspectors. Powell told ABC the issue of inspectors is a "separate and distinct and different" matter from the U.S. position on Saddam's leadership.\nDeath toll climbs in Columbian civil war fighting\nMEDELLIN, Colombia -- Rescuers sent Saturday to an isolated corner of Colombia evacuated more than a dozen people wounded during battles between rebels and rival paramilitaries that killed 68 civilians, including 38 children, authorities said. Most of the 68 civilians were killed when homemade mortars slammed into a church in the village of Bojaya, Juan Gonzalo Lopez, health secretary for Antioquia state, told reporters late Saturday. The village is 235 miles northwest of the capital, Bogota, and borders Antioquia state. Authorities blamed the attack on the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.\nCuba frees noted political prisoner\nHAVANA -- Vladimiro Roca, Cuba's best known political prisoner, was freed early Sunday just two months short of completing his five-year sentence. The release comes one week before former President Carter arrives in the communist country for five-day visit.\nNigeria's president says at least 106 die in plane crash\nKANO, Nigeria -- Nigeria's president said Sunday at least 106 people died when an airliner crashed shortly after takeoff, slamming into buildings and mosques in a working-class neighborhood of the northern city of Kano. Four passengers survived. The Nigerian EAS airlines jet that crashed Saturday was carrying 77 people -- 69 passengers and eight crew members -- and dozens are believed to have been killed on the ground. Nigeria's sports minister, Ishaya Mark Aku, was among those passengers killed.\nRugged Afghan terrain hinders coalition troops\nBAGRAM, Afghanistan -- A handful of the coalition troops sweeping through eastern Afghanistan have been knocked out of commission by the region's mountainous terrain, but none from contact with al-Qaida or Taliban fighters, military officials said Sunday. Three British soldiers were evacuated Saturday to Bagram air base from a mountain in the southeast of the country, Royal Marines spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Harradine said. Two of them were suffering from altitude sickness and the third had dysentery.\nSinn Fein wins Belfast mayor's post for the first time in histroy\nBELFAST, Northern Ireland -- The IRA-linked Sinn Fein party won the post of Belfast mayor for the first time Wednesday, another important step away from its terrorist past and toward a mainstream political future. Furious Protestant politicians walked out of Belfast City Council after the election of Sinn Fein candidate Alex Maskey, a former Irish Republican Army prisoner who nearly died in an assassination attempt 15 years ago. He became the city's second Roman Catholic mayor in recent years following nearly two centuries of Protestant dominance.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Scientists find gene defect involved in skin cancer\nLONDON -- Scientists have determined that a spontaneous change in a certain gene is involved in 70 percent of cases of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, which kills nearly 40,000 people a year worldwide. Experts say the finding might lead to more effective drugs for melanoma, which accounts for just 11 percent of skin cancer, but is hard to treat once it has spread and accounts for almost all deaths from skin cancer.\nSenators: Bush plan misses flaws in FBI and CIA\nWASHINGTON -- Leading lawmakers on intelligence issues said today that President Bush's proposed domestic security agency does not address flaws in the FBI and CIA and is just the start of the changes needed in response to Sept. 11-related failures. \n"If the administration takes the stonewall position that every word in their plan is biblical and if you change it you're unpatriotic, I think that will be a very serious error," said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Sen. Richard Shelby, the committee's top Republican, said Congress must review carefully what Bush's plan does and does not do. For example, he said, it fails to address problems with the FBI and CIA that Congress' intelligence committees are reviewing.\nThe Department of Homeland Security proposed last week by Bush would inherit 169,000 employees and $37.4 billion from the agencies it would absorb, including the Secret Service, Coast Guard, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the immigration and customs services. It would exclude the largest intelligence operations, including the FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency.\nRumsfeld visits U.S. troops in Kuwait\nCAMP DOHA, Kuwait -- Venturing into a sizzling desert 35 miles from the Iraqi border, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today told U.S. troops they are on the front lines against a foe that seeks to use terrorism to alter the American way of life. \n"You are the people who stand between freedom and fear," he said. In his prepared remarks, Rumsfeld left little doubt that he was aiming his anti-terror rhetoric at Iraq, which he frequently says is among nations that support international terrorist groups. He alluded to Iraq in describing the ultimate goal of President Bush's war on terror.\nU.N. refugee agency out of money\nKABUL, Afghanistan -- With a shortfall in donations, the U.N. refugee agency's operation in Afghanistan will be broke within a month, left with little more than promises of peace to give hundreds of thousands of people returning to their war-shattered homeland. Yusuf Hassan, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said Sunday nearly a million refugees have returned from neighboring Pakistan and Iran in less than four months, straining resources to the point of bankruptcy.\nTijuana installs cameras in police stations\nTIJUANA, Mexico -- The government of this violent border city has installed cameras in police stations and jails, seeking to show the public that its officers are not taking bribes or torturing prisoners. Antonio Martinez, attorney general for western Baja California state, said the cameras will provide images that will be broadcast over the Internet. He said a similar program has been well received in the state capital of Mexicali.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Four people were arrested in connection with the disappearance of missing Indiana State University student Scott Javins, who investigators believed were responsible for Javins' disappearance, but police have now released two of the four suspects, holding the other two on drug charges.\nRonnie Boerner, 23, of Terre Haute, allegedly lied to police about information on Javins. The woman, who investigators say admitted lying about the involvement of four people in the college student's two-month-old disappearance, pleaded innocent Wednesday to a charge of false informing.\nBoerner was being held in the Vigo County Jail on a $25,000 bond. She faces an Oct. 18 trial date, said Vigo County Lt. Steve Barnhart.\nJavins was last seen around 2:30 a.m. May 24 in Terre Haute leaving a friend's home in a 2002 silver Honda Civic SI.\nAbout 30 minutes before leaving, he called his mother to tell her he would be heading to their northern Vigo County home. He never arrived.\nMissing posters of Javins have been posted in Terre Haute restaurants and stores. A $25,000 reward has been offered in the case.\nThe supposed break in the case came with a tip on Thursday to the CrimeStoppers line, said Barnhart, the lead investigator in the case.\nBoerner, who said she witnessed part of the crime, met later with detectives. Officers searched a Terre Haute home on Friday, seizing and arresting five people, including a woman and her son who are suspected of having information about the Javins case.\nThey were arrested after marijuana, more than $1,900 in cash and other evidence suggesting a drug operation were found inside their home, police said.\nPolice on Saturday arrested two other men who they thought were connected to the case.\nJavins' father, Merv Javins, said he never believed the story Boerner told detectives: that his son was killed in Illinois over a drug debt and brought back to Terre Haute where his body was dumped.\n"The story they told just didn't make sense," Merv Javins told the Tribune-Star for a story Wednesday. "I told my wife this just didn't add up. I told her I'm not going to believe it."\nBarnhart said Boerner failed a polygraph test Tuesday, and later admitted making up the story.\nAfter Boerner talked with investigators, the four people were arrested over the weekend and officers spent a combined 400 hours over three days searching a wooded area for Javins' body and repeatedly combing the Wabash River for his car.\nMerv Javins said he was concerned that authorities jumped the gun in announcing the arrests, though overall he was satisfied with the investigation.\n"I hope they won't quit until they find answers," he said.\nVigo County Sheriff Bill Harris said detectives still have other leads to pursue.\nMerv Javins said he and his wife still believe their son will be found alive.\n"If you give up hope, what have you got left," he said. "Someone out there knows something. We just need them to come forward and come forward soon"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect behind last week's airborne strikes on the United States, issued a statement Sunday denying that he was involved.\n"I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation," said the statement, broadcast by Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite channel.\nIn the statement, read out by an Al-Jazeera announcer, bin Laden said that he was used to the United States accusing him every time "its many enemies strike at it."\nBin Laden, a Saudi exile who has lived in Afghanistan since 1996, has said on at least one other occasion that he wasn't behind the attacks. Jamal Ismail, a Palestinian journalist, has said a bin Laden aide called him after Tuesday's attack to say bin Laden denied being involved but "thanked almighty Allah and bowed before him when he heard this news."\nBin Laden has often granted interviews to Al-Jazeera, known in the Arab world for its wide reach and its independent and aggressive editorial policies. He also gives Al-Jazeera videos when he has a message to relay to the world, such as a tape early this year in which he was shown reciting an ode to Jerusalem and decrying Israel's presence in the city, which is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims.\nIn Sunday's statement, which was signed "Sheik Osama bin Laden," bin Laden said that he had pledged to the leader of Afghanistan, Mullah Mohammed Omar, to abide by the country's laws, and Omar "doesn't allow those types of acts."\nPresident Bush has said that bin Laden is the prime suspect in the attacks in which hijackers battered passenger planes into the two towers of New York's World Trade Center and a side of the Pentagon. A fourth hijacked plane crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania.\nBin Laden has been indicted by the United States for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Days after the bombings, the United States fired dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles on eastern Afghanistan in an attempt to kill him.
(06/13/02 5:26am)
Milosevic attacks testimony of U.S. ambassador\nTHE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic challenged the testimony of an American ambassador Wednesday, reaching back to the Iran-Contra scandal of the late 1980s in an attempt to discredit the U.S. envoy. At his War Crimes Tribunal, Milosevic cross-examined William Walker, the former U.S. head of a Kosovo peacekeeping mission, about his testimony that he saw piles of bodies at Racak, a massacre that focused world attention on atrocities by Serb forces. As head of the mission for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the late 1990s, Walker was charged with monitoring human rights abuses\nPowell considers possibilities for Palestinian state\nWASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said today the Bush administration is talking to other countries about setting up a provisional Palestinian state and that the proposal will be taken up at a Mideast peace conference this summer. Sharply disagreeing with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Powell said "we are not in line with his position that we should not work with Chairman (Yasser) Arafat." Other top Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, have questioned whether the administration should continue dealing with Arafat as a peace partner.\nJournalist tried for breaking country's new media laws\nHARARE, Zimbabwe -- An American working for a British newspaper, the first journalist to be tried under tough new media laws some see as an attack on free speech in Zimbabwe, pleaded innocent Wednesday to charges he knowingly published false information on alleged political violence. U.S. citizen Andrew Meldrum, 50, a correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian, faces two years in prison if found guilty by the Harare magistrate's court.\nFrench arrest five in shoe bomb investigation\nPARIS -- French anti-terrorist police rounded up five people on Wednesday who are suspected of providing assistance to alleged shoe bomber Richard C. Reid in Paris, the second such sweep in two months. The arrests came as officials in Germany said they had received intelligence of a possible al-Qaida plot to shoot down civilian airliners. Separately, Indian officials claimed they had evidence of an imminent al-Qaida attack on financial institutions in Bombay. And Britain said it was forming a 6,000-strong reaction unit in case of a Sept. 11-style attack.\nRumsfeld sees indications of al-Qaida in Kashmir\nNEW DELHI, India -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday he has seen "indications" of al-Qaida operations near the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan. \n"I don't have any hard evidence of how many or where," Rumsfeld told a news conference after a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee during a high-stakes mission to avert war.\n11 killed in attack on bus in Algeria\nALGIERS, Algeria -- Alleged Islamic militants opened fire on a bus in Algeria, killing 11 people, the North African nation's official news service said. Ten others were wounded. The local bus in the city of Medea, about 45 miles southeast of the capital, Algiers, had pulled up to a stop Tuesday evening when armed attackers sprayed it with gunfire, the APS news agency said.
(06/13/02 3:12am)
Hogs killed in car accident\nOCKLEY, Ind. -- More than 20 hogs were killed when a semitrailer collided with a minivan and overturned on U.S. 421 in Carroll County.\nThe semi was carrying a full load of about 200 hogs Tuesday to the Indiana Packers processing plant in nearby Delphi, about 15 miles northeast of Lafayette.\nWitnesses said the minivan, driven by Lola O'Brien, 76, of nearby Cutler, pulled from a county road onto the highway into the path of the semi, driven by Gregory A. Brinkman of Ferdinand.\nBrinkman slammed on his brakes and swerved to avoid a collision, but the semi struck the front of the minivan before skidding off the west side of the road and overturning, police said.\nO'Brien was in satisfactory condition Wednesday at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Lafayette. Brinkman, 34, was treated at the hospital and released.\nState senator forms committee for 2004 governor run\nINDIANAPOLIS -- State Sen. Murray Clark is creating a committee to begin planning and raising money for a possible run for governor in 2004.\nClark, an Indianapolis Republican and the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor in 2000, filed papers Wednesday with the secretary of state's office to form the committee.\nClark has been considering a run for governor for more than a year. He said the battle in the Legislature over the state's budget deficit and tax restructuring prompted him to take the next step.\n"It appears the General Assembly and especially the governor is moving closer and closer to passing tax increases on Hoosiers during tough economic times," Clark told reporters. "It seems to me we've lost sight of the real issue here, which is how we make the state government live within its means while changing the tax code to move the state's economy forward."\nState Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, and Randy Harris, a three-term mayor of Petersburg in southwestern Indiana, have also said they would seek the GOP nomination for governor. Conservative activist Eric Miller has indicated he might also run.\nLt. Gov. Joe Kernan is widely expected to seek the Democratic nomination to succeed Gov. Frank O'Bannon, who is barred by law from seeking a third term.\nClark, 44, was first elected to the state Senate in 1994, representing parts of Marion and Hamilton counties.\nCourt wants statewide computer network\nVALPARAISO -- The state Supreme Court is taking the lead in creating a statewide case management computer network by offering to provide money to help make it a reality.\nThe computer system envisioned by the court would allow lawyers and the public to access information about cases from around the state over the Internet.\nThe plan was pitched Tuesday during a statewide conference of county clerks. It has triggered positive responses among officials.\nPorter County Clerk Dale Brewer would like to see the county replace its court computer system and accept the state's offer to pay for much of the expense.\nWith connected systems, courts would be able to send orders to the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles for suspended drivers licenses immediately after a ruling was made. Courts also would be able to check to see if defendants have charges pending in other counties.\nThe system would allow the state to maintain an accurate electronic registry of domestic violence protective orders.
(06/03/02 2:55am)
A woman who was found dead in an apartment on May 25 was to have been a key witness in an upcoming murder trial stemming from a fatal drug overdose.\nJanna S. Monyhan, 39, and David C. Huffman, 35, were found dead at Huffman's Bloomington apartment on the city's west side. Police said no signs of trauma were found to either body.\nInvestigators are awaiting the results of toxicology tests performed during an autopsy Sunday, but it could take as long as six weeks to receive that information, police Capt. Joe Qualters told The Herald Times.\nFoul play has not been ruled out in either death, he said.\n"It's very much an active case for us to pursue and we'll be looking at all aspects of it," Qualters said.\nMonyhan was expected to testify at the murder trial of Paul A. Crider, 50, who is accused of causing the March 2001 death of Randy Wagner, 49, of Spencer, Ind., from a cocaine and heroin overdose.\nMonyhan was one of three people prosecutors say were present when Crider mixed the drugs and injected Wagner at a trailer home in Bloomington.\nShe told authorities that she tried to revive Wagner using CPR and urged Crider to call 911, but he refused. She said Crider and another man loaded Wagner's body on a pickup truck and left with it. Wagner's body was found the next day at a home in northern Monroe County after police received an anonymous tip.\nMonroe County Deputy Prosecutor Mary Ellen Diekhoff said Monyhan's death would not affect Crider's trial.\n"The state will proceed with its prosecution," she said. "It's not changing my plans to go forward or not"