The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 3

THE PALM BEACH POST FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 1990 3A FCC votes to study cable TV competition FBI settles racial bias lawsuits New York Times News Service WASHINGTON In what appears to be a significant admission of racial problems within the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the agency has reached settlements in recent months in major discrimina- 1 Tanker Plane Explodes On Runway An Air National Guard KC-135 tanker plane is ed on the runway. Guardsmen were working surrounded by foam sprayed from rescue ve- on the plane's rubber fuel compartments hides at Pease Air Force Base in Newington, when the plane caught fire. No serious inju- N.H., Thursday after it caught fire and explod- ries were reported. Satellite Recovery The Associated Press WASHINGTON Cable television may need competition at the local level, the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday in deciding to study possible changes in rules that allow just one cable system in most communities. The commission, in a 4-0 vote, said the study of competition in the cable industry was required by "changed circumstances in the video marketplace" since Congress passed the 1984 Cable Act.

That act said there need be only one cable system in any community served by three or more broadcast stations. That, plus local franchise agreements that would be unaffected by changes in FCC rules, has meant most communities have only one cable system. The FCC noted that today's cable systems, rather than merely retransmitting the signals of local stations, offer a wide range of programming in their lowest-cost "basic" tier of service and that the cable companies are charging Long-Duration Exposure Facility Structure: 12-sided framework with 86 xperiment trays Length: 30 ft Diameter: 14 ft Weight: 8,000 lbs. Launched: April 1984 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS operate the robot arm; and Marsha Ivins and G. David Low, who will assist in the retrieval.

Early Thursday, the crew had to contend with the more mundane task of mopping up a water leak. Shuttle crew on course to get bus-sized satellite more for this service. So many customers have subscribed to cable that it is the primary way viewers watch television in the United States. Consumer-interest groups and critics in Congress worry about cable's increasing power in the marketplace, while customers increasingly complain of high prices but poor service. Thursday's action was the second major cable reregulatory initiative the FCC has launched in a month as pressure builds in the government to rein in what cable's harshest critics call an unregulated monopoly.

The National Cable Television Association said it looked forward to the new inquiry. The association said it expected the study "will reintroduce a note of reality into the debate over cable rates, which during 1989 rose at a rate only about half of the overall Consumer Price Index." The commission said it hoped to finish the inquiry by July. 18 of N.Y.C. traffic victims used cocaine The Associated Press CHICAGO A study of 643 people killed in New York City traffic accidents shows that 18.2 percent had used cocaine within 48 hours of the accident. Of those 643, blood-alcohol and cocaine tests were available for 378 drivers, and 56 percent had used one or both.

"This will be a national prob-a lem," Dr. Peter Marzuk said Thursday. "I think if you looked at driver fatalities in other large cities you might find relatively comparable results." The study excluded fatalities including pedestrians or bicyclists. Appropriate autopsy findings were available for 643 of the fatally injured drivers and passengers, and 18.2 percent showed evidence of cocaine use within 48 hours before the accident, the researchers reported in today's Journal of the American Medical Association. Among the drivers 70 percent of the 643 the prevalence of cocaine use was 20 percent.

cases in volving black employees. One case was brought by a black agent in Chicago, and civil rights lawyers said they believed this was the first time the bureau Ml Sessions nad settied a ra cial discrimination lawsuit involving an agent. The settlements come after a series of highly publicized and embarrassing disclosures about internal discrimination at the FBI, which is responsible for enforcing the nation's civil rights laws. In 1988, a federal judge in Texas found that the bureau had systematically discriminated against its Hispanic employees in promotions and assignments, Largely as a result of that finding, FBI Director William Sessions ordered sweeping changes in the agency's personnel practices and reorganized its equal employment opportunity office. Leadell Lee, the agent who settled with the bureau, now serves in its office in Riverside, Calif.

He received at least $60,000 to drop his lawsuit under a settlement reached last year, people with knowledge of the case said. Lee, 48, a 17-year veteran of the FBI, had accused the bureau of denying him promotions that went to less-qualified white agents. He has not been promoted as a result of the settlement. An FBI spokesman, Gregory Jones, said he was not aware of any other racial discrimination suit brought by an agent that had been settled out of court. Bureau officials confirmed that they had recently resolved at least two other discrimination cases.

One was brought by Gertie Mae Armstrong, a clerical worker in the FBI's Omaha office; the other involved a group of about 30 workers in the FBI's identification division in Washington. New York Times News Service CAPE CANAVERAL The astronauts of the space shuttle Columbia switched orbital lanes Thursday and increased altitude to maneuver into position for retrieval of a faltering bus-sized satellite. Flight controllers said Columbia was on course for the final phase of the rendezvous to begin shortly after 7 a.m., today. The astronauts plan to stow the 30-foot satellite in the shuttle's cargo bay and bring it back to Earth. The satellite, known as the Long-Duration Exposure Facility, is steadily losing altitude and, if not recovered, would plunge out of orbit in March.

It has been in orbit almost six years as a test of how well materials survive in space. Engineers want to get the LDEF back on Earth for an analysis that should influence the design of future spacecraft. Columbia's two orbital maneuvering engines were fired three times Thursday to bring the shuttle into an orbit matching that of LDEF, but at an altitude 3 miles below the satellite. At this lower altitude of 207 miles, the shuttle was moving somewhat faster than the satellite, closing in so that the distance between the two should be about 45 miles at the start of the final rendezvous maneuvers. When the crew began the day of maneuvers, Columbia was in an orbit ranging in altitude from 210 miles to 194 miles, and was trailing LDEF by almost 600 miles, but closing in at a rate of about 35 miles with each revolution of Earth.

Capt. Frederick Hauck of the Navy, who commanded the only previous retrieval mission, recalled the experience of rendezvous in talking to reporters the day of Columbia's launching. "You're on the dark side of Earth as you approach the satellite using rendezvous radar to track it," Hauck said. "It's timed specifically so as you get in close, it's right at orbital sunrise. It's really fantastic to look Today: Shuttle astronauts are to rendezvous with the Long-Duration Exposure Facility in an orbit more than 200 miles above Earth.

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