The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 1

Ail 111 I I I hl I OK I li 68 PAGES A GANNETT NEWSPAPER LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1995 50 CENTS 4 LATE KENTUCKY EDITION ranee cliiieS Parishes' fates unveiled new rates on hoi I i 114. .1 -i i I I -tT -of8 III a Mil State insu ployees complained about increased rates for family coverage under the Health Purchasing Alliance, which was established last year by the health-care-reform law. Public employees are required to be in the alliance; individuals and businesses with fewer than 100 workers may join voluntarily. The state pays the premium for individual state workers, but employees must pay the additional amount to cover their families. Lawmakers had complained in Oc- See INSURANCE Page 12, col.

1, this section which runs through Nov. 28. The insurance rates will be checked to see if they fall within the actuarial guidelines the Department of Insurance has developed, Stephens said. If they don't, insurers can either reduce the rates or seek a public hearing in which they can try to justify them, he said. He will begin notifying insurance companies next week about whether their rates are acceptable.

Stephens said he thought some of the companies had been "playing with figures" and that some premiums were too high. His decision came after public em By GIL LAWSON Staff Writer FRANKFORT, Ky. Insurance Commissioner Don Stephens, who has been criticized for failing to hold down the cost of health-insurance premiums, announced yesterday that he was rescinding his approval for all rates that were to take effect Jan. 1, so they can be reviewed. The action, which apparently caught many people off guard, comes as thousands of public employees are signing up for new insurance plans.

But Stephens said his decision shouldn't affect enrollment, ill ''Mmt Emotional jury finds Frey guilty of taking bribes A I i "I'm appalled and embarrassed at what the Catholic Church Is doing," said Gerry Ellis, a 17-year member of St. Columba, which is among eight parishes being closed under the restructuring. 4 churches avoid closings; 12 get news they feared rfu STAFF PHOTO BY MARY ANN LYONS Richard Frey, described as "very stoic" after yesterday's guilty verdict, Is to be sentenced Feb. 20. First visit for old enemies Former U.S.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, left, who helped direct America's war In Vietnam, shook hands with retired Gen. Vo Nguyen Glap, commander of the North Vietnamese Army, In Hanoi yesterday. McNamara raised a question he'd saved for 30 years: What really happened in the Tonkin Gulf on Aug. 4, 1964? Story, Page A3 ASSOCIATED PRESS 'f If i A1 for their work in the nine-day trial. "It's been a very difficult task and there's no happiness in it," he said, as several jurors nodded emphatically.

"I can see that from the tears in your eyes." Jurors quickly left the courthouse, escorted by a court security officer, and declined to talk with reporters. A grim-faced Frey sat unflinching while the verdict was read and afterward packed up his records and left the federal courthouse. "Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you," said Frey, the ex-Marine hired in 1978 to restore law and order to the troubled Jefferson County Jail. "The American system of jurisprudence is an amazing thing." Frey was charged with extorting bribe payments of $196,000 from J. See FREY Page 12, col.

1, this section AIDS virus Sydney Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service, Jennifer Learmont. Learmont was matching donors and recipients of blood transfusions and comparing them with a list of people who tested positive for the AIDS virus. After poring over thousands of records of blood donors and recipients, in 1989, she came across two recipients who had received blood from the same infected donor. Strangely, all three individuals were well, which encouraged her to seek other recipients of the donor's blood. She found seven.

Two had died, but from other diseases. The donor and the other five were alive and well and with no symptoms of AIDS. All six individuals have not developed AIDS after periods of 10 to 14 years and their CD-4 white blood cell counts have remained normal, scientists said. By DEBORAH YETTER Staff Writer A federal jury deliberated just three hours yesterday before finding former Jefferson County corrections chief Richard Frey guilty of 55 counts of extortion, money laundering and income-tax evasion. The verdict likely will send Frey, 49, a career corrections professional, to federal prison for around five years with no parole.

He is to be sentenced Feb. 20; meanwhile, he will remain free on bond. A worn-looking jury returned to the Louisville courtroom shortly after 5 p.m. to announce the verdict. None of the jurors looked at Frey as they filed directly past him, and several were weeping as they took their S6cltS U.S.

District Judge Edward H. Johnstone thanked the 10 women and two men on the jury afterward AIDS virus can dramatically alter the disease process, perhaps weaken it completely," said Dr. John Mills, who heads the Macfarlane Burnet Center for Medical Research in Fairfield, Victoria, Australia. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, said the findings underscored the principle that a weakened, or attenuated, virus could be the source of an AIDS vaccine.

But he said much more research is needed to be sure such an attenuated virus vaccine is both safe and effective. Scientists have been trying for years to attenuate the AIDS virus experimentally. It now turns out that nature has done so, yet this rare strain might never have come to light but for the persistent efforts of a social worker and administrator at the -i -1- Goodbye Calvin Calvin and Hobbes, the terrible tyke and his sidekick tiger, are retiring Dec. 31. Cartoonist Bill Watterson informed The Courier-Journal and other newspapers that he is discontinuing the comic strip so he can work "at a more thoughtful pace." News, A3 Fatal conspiracy The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was part of a right-wing conspiracy, said Israeli police, who unearthed a cache of guns and explosives at the home of the confessed killer.

News, A10 Overstating case Ex-presidential lawyer Lloyd Cutler admitted he was wrong when he said last year that a Whitewater probe cleared the White House. News, A2 Power of the press The White House ordered Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary to explain why she paid a firm $43,500 in tax money to rate journalists and analyze news reports for unfavorable coverage. News, A2 General concern A fund-raising drive is under way to keep a life-size statue of Gen. George Patton at the Fort Knox cavalry museum that bears his name. Kentucky, B1 Fantasy football A bowl game wfth coach Howard Schnellenberger's Oklahoma Soon-ers and his old team, the Louisville Cardinals, is tantalizing and maybe unrealistic.

Sports, E1 FAMILIES -iff ay jt we 7,1 V- A 'Ducks' tale "The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks" takes wing Sunday with a Kentucky Center for the Arts world premiere. The musical is a collaboration of playwrights Katherine Pa-terson and Stephanie Tolan and Stage One: The Louisville Children's Theatre. Weekend, D1 Uplifting project A compelling set of black male role models, acting on the principle that "every student is a success story in progress," advised 38 young African-American males on careers and life. Kentucky, S3 forecast" Winding down Kentucky: Windy with showers, storms spreading west to east. Highs, 60 to 70.

Lows, 45 to 55. Clearing tomorrow with steady or falling temperatures. Details, B2 INDEX Autos F1 Movies Business C1 People Comics D14 Racing Crossword D15 Regional Deaths B5 SoortS D6 A2 E5 B1 E1 Forum A14 Television D2 Lottery A2 Weekend D1 Classified C7 STAFF PHOTO BY KEITH WILLIAMS means they may be used for rites such as weddings and funerals, but won't be operating parishes. Five other parisnes also will close: St. Columba, St.

Philip Neri and St. Aloysius (and its school), in Louisville; St. Joseph in St. Joseph; and St. Mark in Greenbrier.

Four churches will be merged into two. St. George and St. Ann will become a single parish by June 1997, and St. Denis and St.

Basil will merge by June 1998. Yesterday morning, church leaders held a news conference at the chancery in Louisville to announce which churches survived and which did not. Outside, angry parishioners from St. Aloysius stood defiantly in the coia, carrying signs protesting the decision to close their church and parish school, where 43 students are enrolled. "I can't afford to move to the East End," one man's placard read.

The St. Aloysius parishioners vowed to keep fighting and said they had asked to attend the news conference, but were refused admission. Inside, Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly said he appre ciated that those whose churches were being closed were feeling grief and pain. "I've been a Catholic for 44 years," said Jerry Bloom of St.

Aloysius. "I never thought I'd be standing outside the chancery wondering what my parents would be thinking," watching their beloved parish close. "I guess if the Lord were sitting in that room today, he would turn to the archbishop and say, 'What are you doing? Why aren't you serving the poor, the needy, the What we are being told today is there are more See CHURCHES Page 13, col. 1, this section By LESLIE SCANLON Staff Writer When he learned that St. Luke Parish would not close, "I was a typical hillbilly, hooting and hollering," Denny Dillman, the parish council president, said yesterday.

"And then right after that, it was just an overwhelming emotion. To come through that it's kind of like a family member that had cancer and was supposed to be terminal, and then the word came through that they were OK. You still feel mat pain of how close it came. I carried on, hollering. Then I sat down and cried." Yesterday, four Catholic churches that were threatened with closing got their miracle answers: St.

Luke, St. Ignatius Martyr and St. Matthias in Louisville and St. Patrick in West Point will stay open, although St. Matthias will be clustered share a priest with another, as yet unidentified, parish.

And two churches that were to be merged St. Poly-carp and Incarnation will remain separate parishes. "It's wonderful," "It's because take Cy Zinner, Incarnation Why some were saved parishioners. wonderful, we care of the community." a member of since 1960s Scientists find chink in churches baffles A13 Development gives hope for vaccine By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN 0 New York Times News Service Australian scientists have discovered a rare strain of the AIDS virus with an unexpected chink in its genetic armor.

Their subjects are a small cluster of people Australia who are infected with the strain and share a remarkable property none have developed AIDS, despite having carried the virus for up to 14 years. The finding suggests new opportunities for developing vaccines and drugs. "This is the first time it has been shown unequivocally that modification of the genomic structure of the said Cy Zinner, who has been a member of Incarnation "since they threw that first shovel of dirt out" in the 1960s. Zinner said he believes his church was saved "because we're more or less a community church we take care of the community, whether Catholic or not," in part through neighborhood sports. But for 12 other churches in the Archdiocese of Louisville, the news was as bad as people had feared.

Eight parishes and one school will close, effective June 17. Three of those churches St. Clare in Coles-burg and St. Vincent de Paul and St. Mary Magdalen in Louisville will be designated as "oratories," which ia mostly parking garages, vacant storefronts, wig shops and a few other stores stay largely deserted except during the weekday lunch hours or when the renovated Palace Theatre opens its doors.

"Very little remains of what Fourth Street was 25 years ago," said Jerry Rice, 50, who wrote and directed the video. "It seems that everybody that grew up here has personal affection for Fourth Street. The video tries to capture that." The video was made by Rice and Tim Young, the same duo who pro Fourth Street Struts Video recalls downtown's liveliest era graphs, film clips and nostalgic interviews woven together in a new, locally made video, Fourth Street Louisville's Street of Yesterdays." "Only a few urban renewal projects ago," the narrative begins, "before some bright soul proposed to study where people like to go and Fourth Street teemed with life. The old photographs in the video show a street jammed with cars and sidewalks overflowing with shoppers and theatergoers. It's in vivid contrast to today, when the two blocks between Theater Square and the Galler- By MICHAEL QUINLAN Staff Writer Bobby soxers sipping cherry colas at Kresge's lunch counter.

Popcorn-munching moviegoers climbing the white marble staircase to the balcony of the Rialto theater. White-suited elevator operators asking shoppers at Stewart's to "please step to the back." And little boys in cowboy hats depositing pennies at the western-style Savings Post under the watchful eye of Randy Atcher and duced "Fontaine Ferry Park A Time of Innocence," which was released three years ago and became the best-selling local video ever at Hawley-Cooke Booksellers. To date.it has sold more than 6,500 copies; Rice and Young said they expect the new video will do even better. Rice, former president of the Louisville Historical League and a self-employed writer and director, began the project three years ago by interview- See VIDEO Page 7, col. 1, this section "Cactus" Tom Brooks.

All are images from the heyday of Fourth Street the 1930s, '40s, '50s and '60s when the downtown artery pumped life into the heart of Louisville. Before suburban sprawl and shopping malls and before city planners closed Fourth Street to traffic and made it the pedestrian River City Mall this was where many Louisvillians went to satisfy their entertainment, dining and shopping needs. The era is chronicled in photo- 40901 "10706.