The Anniston Star from Anniston, Alabama • Page 1

Saturday, April 5, 1997 Alabama 's largest home-owned newspaper- 50 cents Clinton faced with torturous Mideast talks Analysis By Peter Slevin Knlghl-RkJdw Tribune News Wire Aftar four years whan Israelis and Palestinians did much to make peace by themselves, Clinton Is being pressed to do more. To do more, however, poses political conundrums for the White House and no certain progress In the fractious Middle East. struction of 6,500 apartments in contested East Jerusalem, but vetoing two U.N. resolutions calling for a halt to construction. Since work began, bombs carried by militant Arabs have exploded, killing Israeli civilians.

Netanyahu insists the Israelis will not negotiate until the terror campaign stops, while Arafat refuses to talk until the construction work is halted. Relations have worsened considerably since October, the last time Clinton interceded publicly. Then, he invited Arafat and Netanyahu to the White House, where the two adversaries talked at length, face-to- See Mldeast2A WASHINGTON Never in recent years has the road toward Middle East peace seemed bumpier, and never have the choices facing President Clinton seemed more difficult. Amid the darkening gloom of Arab-Israeli relations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will venture to the White House next week, where Clinton will try again to bring the feuding parties together. After four years when Israelis and Palestinians did much to make peace by themselves, Clinton is being pressed to do more.

To do mort, however, poses political conundrums for the White House and no certain progress in the fractious Middle East. One suggestion is to sponsor intensive negotiations akin to the 1995 peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, where American diplomats knocked heads together and emerged with a deal to end the Bosnian war. Another is to put firmer pressure on Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to compromise. "Right now," said Alan Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, "the issue is how to get them out of the corners they've painted themselves into and back at the table." In recent weeks, as Arab-Israeli relations worsened, the Clinton administration has tried to split the difference, criticizing Netanyahu for starting con iyiT Volunteers bring A IV A Sunlight Baptist By Laura Tutor Star Staff Writer ISP 1 Xl jt Spring has sprung! EASTABOGA The new steeple doesn't have much longer to wait. In fact, it may be just a matter of days before it leaves its temporary post in the Sunlight Baptist Church cemetery and finds a permanent roost on the sanctuary roof.

The minister who bought the steeple and the baptistery beside it thought about that and smiled. As he explained the resurrection of the church that was destroyed in an October fire, the Rev. Jesse Montgomery surveyed the buzz of activity around him. He also thanked the Lord for sending more than 40 volunteers to his church to speed the congregation back to its 1 1 1-year-old home. "They're doing wonderful, that's for sure," Montgomery said Friday afternoon, a day after the volunteers coordinated by the Calhoun Baptist Association descended on the country church.

"I never did dream how good it would be." About 100 volunteers are expected at the church today to finish the walls and begin work on the inside of the building. If all goes well, members say they could be worshipping in the new church in a few weeks. Be sure to set your clocks forward one hour before retiring tonight. Eddie MotesThe Anniston Star At center, Richard Smith of Carpenters for Christ works on rebuilding Sunlight Baptist Church. Viewers to get another choice of local news Done to a crisp Cecilia Wolcott's first tan of the year was almost the last of her life.

She got trapped inside a tanning bed in her Norton Shores, home after a switch malfunctioned, preventing her from raising the lid. But she had a cordless phone with her and called authorities for help. The bed "was lit up and it was getting plenty warm," said Ms. Wolcott, 60, who uses the bed to treat a skin condition. "I knew I'd burn to a crisp if I didn't get some help.

I called 9 1 1 and they answered right away." Police and firefighters rushed to her home about 1 1 a.m. Thursday and cut off the electrical power. They dismantled the bed to free her. "It's astounding what could have happened," Sgt. Dave Boone said.

By Richard Coe Star Staff Writer All the new investment, however, does not seem to have satisfied some viewers. The city councils in both Oxford and Hobson City took the unusual step of passing resolutions, spurred by viewer complaints, berating ABC 3340 for locking duplicate ABC programming from Atlanta's WSB Channel 2. Perceiving a void in local television news coverage, WDNG a news and talk station, began a half-hour newscast on Time Warner Cable five days a week. WDNG News Director David Ford was skeptical that See Vlewers2A Alabama's ABC 3340, WVTM 13 and WBRC 6, all from Birmingham, and a nightly program produced by Anniston radio station WDNG 1450 AM. Eric Land, president and general manager of WBMG, said the simulcast would improve the quality of local news in Anniston and Gadsden and promised to give the cities "the kind of coverage they deserve." WNAL General Manager Jim Moss said eventually studios will be built in Anniston, Gadsden and Tuscaloosa, and that more changes are in the works for his station.

WNAL may become an independent station or continue to be a CBS affiliate, but the changes are still being negotiated and will not be resolved for, the next several months, he said. Ever since WJSU Channel 40 merged with WCFT Channel 33 in Tuscaloosa and moved to Birmingham as Alabama's 3340, Birmingham stations have scrambled to expand their reporting in Calhoun County. ABC 3340 reports Calhoun County news from a redesigned Anniston studio and has committed a satellite truck to the 13 built a studio in Anniston at Lyric Square. And WBRC 6 revved up reporting from its studio in the Williamson Commerce Center. Starting Monday, Calhoun and Etowah County residents will have a new choice for local television news.

WNAL Channel 44 in Gadsden will begin showing a simulcast of the 6 p.m. arid 10 p.m. local news from Birmingham's CBS affiliate, WBMG Channel 42. WNAL also is a CBS affiliate, but the station does not produce a local news program. The change means that television viewers in Anniston will be able to choose from five local news broadcasts: WBMG Channel 42, Thunderstorms Thunderstorms are expected today.

Some could be severe with a mixture of strong winds and mild temperatures, Forecast4A Humidifying system malfunctions, floods Anniston Museum Consumer groups oppose telephone giants' plan By Jeannlne Aversa Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON In an unusual alliance, Bell Atlantic and Nynex sent federal regulators a plan Friday they say would cut telephone bills for businesses and residences $400 million annually. But FCC Chairman Reed Hundt quickly dismissed the plan. The companies' proposal comes as the Federal Communications Commission considers revamping two areas of phone regulation: a subsidy program that keeps local phone service affordable in high- Colleen C. Hurst, Southside Charles J. McNabb III, Lineville Robert Brandon Noell, Oxford Lewis Ray Nowland, Oxford Eugene Seales, Munford Bunice Ayres Walls, Newell Sula H.

Wilkins, Anniston Ethel Earlene Young, Roanoke Obituaries5A By Marti Nonemaker Star Staff Writer More than 800 visitors flooded the halls of the Anniston Museum of Natural History Thursday, and as many were expected Friday. But Friday morning all patrons were turned away as museum workers focused their attention on a different type of flood. Newly installed hydrating units had malfunctioned during the night, causing significant water damage to three popular exhibits. The cause of the malfunction has yet to be determined. Adjusters must investigate before they can make any damage estimates, museum Director Ellen Donovan said.

The state-of-the-art steam system was installed over the past two months to keep the fragile exhibit halls' environments constant. Although the system had been Calendar 7B Docket 4A Classifieds 5A Movies 8B Cody Hall 8B People 7B Eddl MotMTh AnnlUBfi Star Museum registrar Holly Trimper dries off a bird caught in the flood. See Museum2A Comics 6B Religion 9A See Phone2A Scientists' depth of faith hasn't changed despite advances Vol.117, No. 95 (USPS 026-440) 164 pages In four sections By Mail, 20 pages In two sections By Natalie Angier New. York Times people surveyed profess a belief in God.

But those familiar with the survey said that, given the questionnaire's exceedingly restrictive definition of God narrower than the standard Gallup question and given scientists' training to say exactly what they mean and nothing more, the 40 percent figure in fact is impressively high. More revealing than the figures themselves, experts said, is their stability. The fact that scientists' private belief's re-' mained unchanged across almost a century defined by change suggsts that orthodox religion is no more disappearing among those considered the intellectual elite than it is among the public at large. See Scientists 12A Then as now, about 40 percent of the responding biologists, physicists and mathematicians said they believed in a God who, by the survey's strict definition, actively communicates with humankind and to whom one may pray "in expectation of receiving an answer." Roughly 15 percent in both suryeys claimed to be agnostic or to have "no definite belief regarding the question, while about 42 percent in 1916 and about 45 percent today said they did not believe in a God as specified in the questionnaire, although whether they believed in some other definition of avdeity or an all-mighty was not addicsscd. The figure of unqualified oclievers is considerably usualTy-cited fof Amcncans as a "whole.

Gallup polls, for example, have found that about 93 percent of WSkHWtffl Dow CIom 6,526.07 Scientists have been accused of playing God when they clone sheep, and of naysaying God when they insist that evolution be taught in school, but as a new study indicates, many scientists believe in God by the most mainstream, uppercase definition of the concept. 1 Repeating verbatim a famous survey first conducted in 1916, Edward Larson of the University of Georgia has found that the depth of religious faith among scientists has not budil regardless' of whatever scientificTnnd technical advances this century has wrought. i.