Stories from Tuesday, July 9, 2002

AP Business WriterSEATTLE (AP) -- Members of The Boeing Co.'s largest union on Tuesday took the first step toward a possible strike if negotiations for a new contract fail this summer. Members voting in three districts of the Machinists union -- in the Puget Sound area, Wichita, Kan., and Portland, Ore. ...

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The death toll from a fire that gutted a popular nightclub rose to 42 on Monday, though police said it was likely more bodies would be found inside the building. Some people leapt to their deaths from the top of the four-floor karaoke bar in the provincial capital of Palembang as flames engulfed the roof Sunday night, police Capt. Arum Prioyono said...

TEHRAN, Iran -- Ruling that teaching traditional Iranian dance corrupts the nation's youth, a court banned an Iranian-American dancer from leaving Iran for 10 years and from giving dance classes for life, his lawyer said Monday. Mohammad Khordadian, Iran's best-known male dancer, was also given a 10-year suspended jail term for promoting moral corruption by holding dance classes in the United States, according to the ruling, handed down Sunday. ...

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Paramilitary commandos stormed houses in Pakistan's largest city Monday, arresting three men who were charged in last month's deadly bombing at the U.S. Consulate in Karachi. The three are members of Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen al-Almi, said Maj. Gen. Salahuddin Satti of the paramilitary Pakistan Rangers...

HAMBURG, Germany -- A former Nazi SS major has appealed his conviction on 59 counts of murder for a World War II massacre of Italian prisoners, the Hamburg state court said Monday. Friedrich Engel, 93, on Friday was sentenced to seven years in prison for his part in the shootings on a mountain pass above Genoa, but the Hamburg court let him walk away a free man because of his age. There was no word on when the Federal Criminal Court would hear his appeal...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- International peacekeepers agreed Monday to join the investigation into the weekend slaying of Vice President Abdul Qadir, as speculation mounted that the killing had more to do with vendettas and business deals than with plots to undermine the government...

CARL JUNCTION, Mo. -- A group of residents hopes to derail plans to convert an abandoned stretch of railroad tracks in Missouri and Kansas into a recreational trail. Landowner Paul Hance is leading a petition drive in southwest Missouri to stop the project that involves the old Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway line between Carthage, Mo., and Columbus, Kan. He already has collected more than 400 signatures on petitions in several communities...

NEOSHO, Mo. -- A southwest Missouri teen-ager will stand trial in December for allegedly pushing another teen into a rain-swollen creek. A Dec. 4 trial date was set for Jackie Turosik, 17, of Neosho, after he waived formal arraignment and pleaded innocent Monday to a charge of first-degree assault in Newton County Circuit Court...

REPUBLIC, Mo. -- Development isn't encroaching on Wilson's Creek National Battlefield -- at least not yet. But nature is. Nearly a century and a half after the 1861 Confederate victory at Wilson's Creek, the trees and brush are so thick and the grass so tall that it may be difficult for visitors to imagine how a battle could have been fought...

ST. LOUIS -- If anyone in Tom Bauer's ward still wonders whether the alderman is a Democrat, the politician's donkey might be a giveaway. And if Bauer has his way, he'll ride Dan the donkey all the way into another term in this city's 24th Ward...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- People around the country paid more than $19.4 million for vehicles that didn't exist after hearing that a rich man wanted to reward others who believed in God, the government alleges. "I feel stupid for having been duped," said Mark Grissom of Atlanta. Grissom said he is out $10,500 and that he innocently recruited several family members and friends...

A look at the number of motor vehicle deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2000, the latest year for which figures were available: STATE DEATHS Arkansas 2.2 Tennessee 2.0 Missouri 1.7 Kansas 1.6 Iowa 1.5 Nebraska 1.5 Oklahoma 1.5 Illinois 1.4...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The families of the late Gov. Mel Carnahan, his son and a campaign aide reached a $1.6 million settlement Monday with Cessna Aircraft Co. over the October 2000 plane crash that killed the three men, a lawyer for the Carnahan family said...

ST. LOUIS -- Although improved from past years, Missouri fares slightly worse than most other states in the number of traffic fatalities per miles driven. The safety of Missouri roads is being used in advertisements by supporters of Proposition B, the transportation tax increase on the Aug. 6 ballot. They say the one-half cent sales tax and 4-cent fuel tax increase would make the state's roads safer by paying for improvements...

OAK BROOK, Ill. -- Illinois Republicans, reeling from corruption allegations that have crippled Gov. George Ryan and forced the ouster of their state chairman, can't find a big name to lead the party just months from an election that will decide control of state government...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Raising cigarette taxes seems to have raised smokers' interest in quitting. The American Lung Association of Illinois says it has seen a sharp jump in the number of calls to its Quitline. Normally, it gets about 100 calls a day, but that has climbed to 140 and even 150 a day, association spokeswoman Kathy Drea said...

ST. LOUIS -- Tim Jung runs what might be the very definition of a small business: It's just him, his wife and three employees, including two students who work part-time. But what they're doing at the office -- the basement of Jung's home in St. Charles County -- has managed to induce the ire of Vivendi Universal, the French-based media conglomerate that spent $30 billion two years ago to buy Canada-based Seagram Co. ...

BERLIN -- A Russian pilot received contradictory instructions before crashing into a cargo plane over Germany last week, German investigators said Monday after reviewing voice recorders from the two jets. The voice recorders show that a Swiss air traffic controller's order for a Russian pilot to descend contradicted the cockpit warning system's command for the Tu-154 to climb, the investigators said...

CAIRO, Egypt -- The wife of an Egyptian who gunned down two people at the Los Angeles airport said Monday that her husband is innocent and that he gave no hint of violence in a phone call hours before the shooting. "My husband didn't do such a thing. This is nonsense," 41-year-old Hala Mohammed Sadeq El-Awadly told The Associated Press on Monday in Cairo...

MANILA, Philippines -- The U.S. military will conduct new exercises against Abu Sayyaf insurgents in the southern Philippines after they complete operations on Basilan island, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said Monday. About 1,000 U.S. military personnel are winding up a six-month counterterrorism exercise that helped local troops wage several bloody assaults against the Muslim extremists on Basilan...

Standing in front of a fence that confines his 65 Black Angus cows, Stan Murray plucks a handful of tens and twenties from his wallet and extends them toward you. "Now you give me one single dollar and I'll give you all this," says the lifelong Sedgewickville, Mo., cattleman. "That's the best way to tell you how well the beef checkoff works."...

Many sexually active Southeast Missouri residents have become complacent about AIDS and don't practice safe sex, Cape Girardeau County public health officials say. "That is a battle we fight every day," said Charlotte Craig, director of the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri voters this election year will determine the fates of three proposed tax increases and three suggested amendments to the state Constitution. Two of those measures will appear on the Aug. 6 ballot. Proposition A would add a tariff on cellular phone service to improve the 911 emergency system, while Proposition B calls for fuel and sales tax increases for transportation...

In the past decade, at least 10 law enforcement officers in Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptors have died and at least seven policemen have been seriously injured in rear-collision crashes in which the gas tank caught fire. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating the vehicles since November. ...

Cape Girardeau police are investigating the death of an infant Monday morning. About 8 a.m. Monday, the Cape Girardeau Fire Department responded to a report of an infant who was not breathing at 615 N. Spanish St. After attempts to revive William Crawford, 5 months, emergency workers took the child to Southeast Missouri Hospital, where he was pronounced dead...

Editor's note: This article was written as a school assignment last fall. By Carsen Bahn Cape Girardeau is the home of more than 2,000 businesses. "This city has a diverse economy with manufacturing, hotels and restaurants, retail sales, agriculture, health services, education and transportation," said John Mehner, the executive director of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce...

Actress confesses her love for Pop Tarts NEW YORK -- Lara Flynn Boyle swears she really does eat. "I love Slim Jims, Hot Tamales, banana cake," the notoriously thin actress tells Jane magazine for its August issue. "I love pie a la mode -- oh, God, nothing like it. Roast beef, peas in mashed potatoes, escargot, caviar, peanut butter and jelly, Pop Tarts, I love it all."...

HOUSTON -- An NAACP report inspired by the 2000 presidential election, when thousands of minority voters' ballots didn't count, has found that most states have made little progress in reforming their election systems. Six states received failing grades in an NAACP report released Monday. The states that received an "F" were Delaware, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Vermont...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The same day last month that Mohamad Hammoud became the first person convicted under a 1996 law that bans aid to terrorist groups, a federal judge in California declared the statute unconstitutional. Though federal prosecutors expect Hammoud's conviction to stand, questions surround the future of the law as the government plans to use it against two major defendants: the alleged "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui and John Walker Lindh, the American accused of taking up arms for the Taliban.. ...

WASHINGTON -- Sunil Gupta and his buddies were on top of a parking garage at Dulles International Airport one recent Saturday morning, practicing one of the more dubious hobbies of the new terrorist-wary age: plane spotting. Chatting in the sunshine, while checking flight schedules on laptops and listening to hand-held scanners tuned to air traffic control signals, the carefree guys, all computer specialists, looked as if they were throwing a Dilbert-theme tailgate party...

SAN ANTONIO -- With flood warnings out and more rain looming, Gov. Rick Perry said Monday that he expected losses from the deadly flooding across Texas to be near $1 billion. "Once all these floodwaters recede, we'll see the impact," Perry said after touring a flood-damaged home in downtown San Antonio. "It's going to be substantial. This is another major, major blow to the state of Texas."...

ATLANTA, Texas -- More than 30 million tires are piled up amid the pine forests of northeastern Texas. And state environmental officials are worried. The decaying rubber once intended for recycling now is stacked in mounds up to 25 feet high, posing an extreme fire hazard, officials say...

BALTIMORE -- A Jordanian citizen who FBI officials believe lived with two Sept. 11 hijackers last year will remain in federal custody, a magistrate ordered Monday. Rasmi Al-Shannaq, 27, is charged with obtaining a fake visa from the U.S. embassy in Qatar...

NEW YORK -- Merck & Co. recorded $12.4 billion in revenue from its pharmacy benefits unit over the past three years even though the subsidiary never collected the money. The news sent company stock falling Monday. Merck, the world's third-largest drug maker, said it had followed generally accepted accounting practices and the practice didn't affect earnings since the revenue was offset in financial reports as an expense...

INGLEWOOD, Calif. -- A police officer was suspended Monday after he was shown on a videotape slamming a handcuffed teen-ager onto the back of a car and striking him during an arrest. "What occurred within the video is extremely disturbing to the Inglewood Police Department and to the administrators of the city," police Lt. Eve Irvine said...

U.S. consumers boost borrowing in May WASHINGTON -- Americans, shrugging off worries about the strength of the recovery, increased their borrowing in May at the fastest pace in six months. The Federal Reserve said Monday that consumer credit rose at an annual growth rate of 6.8 percent in May, the strongest rate of growth since a 15 percent growth rate last November...

ST. LOUIS -- An immigration court in St. Louis has ordered retired aircraft worker Michael Negele deported to Romania after finding the 81-year-old served as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. The order, announced Monday, comes more than a year after federal prosecutors with the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations began seeking his removal from the country, which followed a court battle over Negele's citizenship...

FORT BENNING, Ga. -- NFL player Pat Tillman made a living pushing his body to the limit, putting himself through grueling training and sweating it out in the summer heat. This year, he's doing it for the Army for a lot less money. The 25-year-old starting safety for the Arizona Cardinals told coaches last year that he wanted to join the Rangers -- the Army's elite infantry unit -- and train with his younger brother, who enlisted with him...

Briefly Basketball Frank Williams, a first-round pick in the NBA draft, signed with the Knicks. Williams, a 6-foot-3, 205 pound guard from Illinois, was the 25th overall pick in the draft, chosen by the Denver Nuggets. ...

To the editor: Bollinger County lost one of its most talented young men when Lance Fahrenkrog was killed in a tragic highway accident. After my husband and I moved to Southeast Missouri, we were led to New Salem Baptist Church. We had the privilege to meet Lance and hear his beautiful and powerful singing voice. ...

Conrad leads CapeLegion to district baseball win The Cape Girardeau American Legion (14-13) baseball team defeated Charleston 7-3 for a district win Monday. Matt Wulfers pitched a complete game and struck out 14. Chris Conrad went 3-for-5 including an inside-the-park home run and a triple. Jeff Brosey was 2-for-4 with a two-run home run and a double with two runs scored and two RBIs. Tyler Schlosser was also 2-for-4 with a triple and a single...

Alfred "Al" Laurentius, 73, of Cape Girardeau died Sunday, July 7, 2002, at his home. He was born Nov. 21, 1928, at Glennon, Mo., son of Joe A. and Mary Elizabeth VanGennip Laurentius. He and Rose Marie VanGennip were married Aug. 21, 1954, at Leopold, Mo...

Here's the solution OK, YOU godless people. Quit trying top force your beliefs on us by taking God out of the schools. If you had any smarts, you would tell your children not to say the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Who would know? Problem solved...

FAIRDEALING, Mo. -- Charles Bural Samons, 82, of Fairdealing died Monday, July 8, 2002, at Three Rivers Medical Center in Poplar Bluff, Mo. He was born Feb. 16, 1920, in Supply, Ark., son of James and Lola Hayes Samons. He and Ann Marie Helms were married in August 1938. She died June 8, 1993...

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- The funeral for Ivroy J. Pittman will be held at 11 a.m. today at Young and Sons Funeral Home. The Rev. Joe Choka will officiate. Burial will be in Cedar Fork Cemetery. Friends may call at the funeral home from 6:30 a.m. until time of service...

Dorothy Dozois, 86, of Forest Park, Ill., died Saturday, June 29, 2002, in Chicago. Survivors include two cousins, Carolyn Goodin of Cape Girardeau and Thomas Abernathy of St. Louis. Dozois had worked at Sears Roebuck Co. The funeral was held July 2 at Conboy's Westchester Funeral Home in Westchester, Ill. Burial was in Queen of Heaven Cemetery near Westchester...

KENNETT, Mo. -- Graveside service for Malcom Oscar Gramling of Kennett will be held at 11 a.m. today at Memorial Gardens Cemetery. The funeral was held Monday at McDaniel Funeral Home, with Sam Stewart officiating. Gramling, 74, died Sunday, July 7, 2002, at Heritage Nursing Center...

10 years ago: July 9, 1992 Cape Girardeau Planning and Zoning Commission Wednesday recommended only minor changes to city laws that regulate day care homes; commission's review of day care regulations was prompted by recent neighborhood dispute over day care home on Delwin Street...

Southeast Missouri State University has made interim changes in student auxiliary services. Lori Lynn, director of recreational sports, has been appointed interim director of student auxiliary services. The director of the University Center will report to her, and she will continue to serve as direct supervisor of recreational sports. She also will advise student government...

The revival of a multi-state independent baseball league could lead to a minor-league franchise playing ball in Sikeston, Mo., by next spring. Gary Jones, a retired stock broker from Evansville, Ind., says he and Randy Morgan, a retired economic development specialist with the State of Kentucky, plan to have the Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee League operating for the start of the season in May 2003 with teams in Sikeston, Paducah, Ky., Fulton, Ky., and Dyersburg, Tenn...

Associated Press WriterLOS ANGELES (AP) -- Rod Steiger, who played Marlon Brando's mob-connected brother in "On the Waterfront" and won the 1967 Oscar for best actor for his role as the unrelenting Southern police chief in "In the Heat of the Night," died Tuesday. He was 78...

Associated Press WriterREIMS, France (AP) -- Australia's Robbie McEwen used a closing sprint to win the third stage of the Tour de France on Tuesday, as three-time champion Lance Armstrong slipped to fifth place in the overall standings after finishing in the main pack...

Associated Press WriterDETROIT (AP) -- The detained co-founder of an Islamic charity is seeking political asylum in the United States because he fears he will not be safe in his native Lebanon if the U.S. government succeeds in deporting him, his attorney said Tuesday...

ALTON, Ill. (AP) -- An East Alton man who held police at bay for seven hours was charged Tuesday with unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon, officials said. David Gargac was being held in the Madison County Jail on $50,000 bond, said Stephanee Smith, a spokeswoman for State's Attorney William Haine...

BARCELONA, Spain -- The U.S. and Thai governments will soon begin the largest trial yet of a preventive AIDS vaccine, testing a combination of vaccines on more than 16,000 subjects in the general Thai population, researchers from the two countries announced Monday at the 14th International AIDS Conference...

WASHINGTON -- From Missouri to Mexico, Virginia to Venezuela, doctors are giving thousands of babies two experimental vaccines hoping to stop a type of diarrhea that kills more than 600,000 children worldwide each year. It's a difficult quest: The first rotavirus vaccine was pulled off the market in 1999 after a life-threatening side effect struck some U.S. ...

The 28-story Eagleton Federal Courthouse in St. Louis is an impressive addition to the skyline. At 567 feet, it is the fourth tallest building in St. Louis. It has 28 stories, 1,037,632 square feet and 49 courtrooms. And the federal government, which opened the courthouse nearly two years ago, claims it is the largest courthouse in the world. Cost: $185 million...

SAARBRUECKEN, Germany -- Lance Armstrong enjoyed a relaxed ride in Monday's stage of the Tour de France, while some struggled to get to the finish. "It was nervous today, but quite easy," the three-time defending champion said. Armstrong finished the second stage in 61st place, and slipped to fourth in the overall standings. He isn't expected to bid for the lead until the race reaches the mountains next week...

ST. LOUIS -- No team could use the All-Star break more than the St. Louis Cardinals. It's been an emotionally draining first half, like no other, and the last three weeks have been filled with sorrow. Though they're in first place in the NL Central and showed their resourcefulness during a 7-6 homestand to close the first half, it was never quite business as usual...

MILWAUKEE -- Once again, when it comes to home run hitting, Sammy Sosa is No. 2. Jason Giambi overcame Sosa's dazzling display of longballs early in the All-Star Home Run Derby and easily beat Sosa 7-1 in the final Monday night. After Sosa hit seven 500-foot homers in the first two rounds, including three that left Miller Park on the fly, the Chicago Cubs slugger could only go deep once in the final...

WIMBLEDON, England -- Hey, new Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt and any other doubters, listen up: The Williams sisters are great for tennis. Even if they keep beating everyone in sight? Yes. Even if they keep meeting in Grand Slam finals? Especially...

SERENA RANKS NO. 1 Wimbledon champion Serena Williams officially moved up to No. 1 in the WTA Tour rankings Monday, the first time she's been ahead of older sister Venus. The 20-year-old Serena is the 11th woman to lead the computer standings since they started in 1975, replacing Venus...

ROSEMONT, Ill. -- The executive board of the baseball players' union failed to set a strike date Monday but will ask major leaguers for the authority to call the sport's ninth work stoppage since 1972. Members of the union's executive board, meeting on the day before the All-Star game, left a hotel near Chicago's O'Hare International Airport saying they will go back to their teammates. ...

WASHINGTON -- Federal investigators are conducting raids nationwide on jewelry stores owned mostly by Pakistanis, hoping to break up fronts for terrorist groups or their financial backers, U.S. officials say. The raids have taken place in several cities over the past two weeks, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Atlanta and New York. About 75 jewelry stores have been raided, said a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity...

WASHINGTON -- WorldCom executives clashed with former auditors Monday over responsibility for nearly $4 billion in accounting improprieties that rocked U.S. markets. The telecommunications giant's former CEO and finance chief refused to testify to a House panel investigating the debacle...

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is preparing to send a search team to northeastern China in hopes of recovering the remains of two American pilots believed to have been buried 50 years ago where their unmarked plane crash-landed during a failed spy mission for the CIA...

WASHINGTON -- President Bush presented a posthumous Medal of Honor Monday to Army Capt. Rocky Versace, a Green Beret who defied his Viet Cong captors and was executed in 1965. "He was fluent in English, French and Vietnamese and would tell his guards to go to hell in all three," Bush told a group of about 200 in the East Room of the White House. The audience included Versace's friends and family members, including three brothers...

From wire reports WASHINGTON -- President Bush prodded Congress on Monday to fully fund the war on terrorism at home and aboard, saying some accounts could be depleted in a matter of days and that "further delay is intolerable." At a White House news conference, Bush also brushed aside questions about his own past business practices as "old-style politics" and said the SEC investigated him years ago and took no action...

Cape Girardeau Tuesday, July 9 ArrestsCedric Royce Rucker, 19, of 225 S. Lorimier, Apt. A, was arrested Saturday for property damage. Adrian McKinsley Brown, 18, of 537 S. Hanover was arrested Sunday for possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute...

Cape Girardeau Tuesday, July 8 Firefighters responded to the following calls Sunday:At 7:50 p.m., an emergency medical service at 1256 Linden. Firefighters responded to the following calls Monday:At 12:24 a.m. and 12:27 a.m., a motor vehicle accident and emergency medical service at the 99-mile marker of I-55...

MARBLE HILL, Mo. -- A 24-year-old Jackson, Mo., man was seriously injured early Sunday morning when the all-terrain vehicle he was driving ran off the road and struck a tree. Richard Fink was taken to St. Francis Medical Center after the 5 a.m. accident. It occurred on a private drive six miles north of Marble Hill...

If you don't know who Scooby-Doo is, ask your kids. Or check the marquee at your local theater. The cartoon chow hound with a lust for Scooby Snacks and a knack for getting in and out of trouble is now the star of a hugely popular movie. THQ and developer Heavy Iron Studios are hoping for the same success for a new PlayStation 2 title, "Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights."...

In a blinding flash, the routine high school chemistry experiment turned to chaos. An alcohol-fueled fireball shot into the classroom, searing the skin of three junior honor students in the front row. They took the brunt of the blast on their faces, necks, arms, hands and legs...

AP Business WriterNEW YORK (AP) -- Investors sent stocks sharply lower for a second consecutive session Tuesday as worries about second-quarter earnings reports overshadowed President Bush's proposal to increase the penalties for corporate fraud...