The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 3

Tiir 3A National News Daily Briefing Nation Clinton launches 'harder budget sell. President blames gridlock and delay i fil Toxic cloud injures more than 1,700 people Richmond, Calif. (AP) A railway tank car valve failed Monday, releasing a toxic sulfuric acid cloud that left more than 1,700 people ill, officials said. Most were expected to recover quickly. The leak was capped about four hours after a safety valve broke on the car in the yard at General Chemical plant manager Robert Jewettsaid.

"Speaking for General Chemical, we are extremely embarrassed by this incident. Let me assure everyone that this is an isolated incident," Jewettsaid. County Health Director Wendell Brunner said most suffered from breathing problems, nausea and skin irritations and would recover within a short time. He said a small number of people could suffer from bouts of asthma lasting weeks or months. President Clinton will place a call from the White House to Frank Harkin of Cumming, brother of Sen.

Tom Harkin, to commemorate the third anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Frank Harkin, who is deaf, became a symbol in Harkin's fight to pass the bill that requires greater efforts by government and the private sector to make their facilities more accessible to the disabled. Clinton will place the call on a relay system that is required by the act. Clinton will speak to a relay operator, who will then type his message into a text telephone and read Frank Harkin's typed responses back to Clinton. Chicago, HI.

(AP) An impatient President Clinton launched a new, harder sell Monday for his budget and accused Republicans of trying to block him at every turn. "This really is about growth against gridlock decision against delay," Clinton told an audience of business and labor representatives at a conference here. "You have got to demand that we do something." Delicate House-Senate negotiations on his budget, as well as a week of Republican maneuvering on several issues important to Clinton, appeared to spark the attack. With deadlines looming for budget negotiators and some friction developing among Democrats over the shape of the final package, Clinton used unusually hot rhetoric to build a sense of urgency for the plan. "The government needs to pass this budget and get on to the rest of the business," he said.

The president was clearly frustrated by Republican tactics that last week delayed action on flood aid, Joycelyn Elders. "Let's get on with it," he said. "Let's vote. I don't have to win them all, but let's make decisions. This institutionalized gridlock and delay is bad for America." At one point Clinton was interrupted by a heckler shouting that since the Democrats controlled Congress, Clinton and his party were responsible for gridlock.

The heckler, William Kelly, chairman of a group called PAC for Middle America, kept shouting at Clinton and wouldn't let him answer. "This is not your meeting, sir, and most people have better manners than to interrupt somebody who's giving a speech," Clinton interjected. "I might say this is another thing wrong with this country. There's not enough civility in how we treat each other." Then he responded to the man's complaint, saying Democrats do not control Congress as long as 41 Republican senators can prevent action on any bill but the budget. Associated Press President Clinton chats with Sen.

Carol Moseley-Braun, after arriving at Chicago's Midway Airport Monday. threatened to kill his national service plan, and nearly scuttled a hearing for his surgeon-general nominee, Tornado strikes Scottsbluff; 10 injured Scottsbluff, Neb. (AP) A tornado struck west of the city Monday afternoon, ripping the roof off a furniture store, cutting through a housing subdivision and injuring at least 10 people. Four people were injured in car accidents as they tried to steer clear of the tornado's path. Others were injured when a twister struck the furniture store they were in.

People hung onto furniture legs and watched couches fly overhead as the tornado struck the store. "I had just walked into the store when someone hollered, 'Hit the said T.J. Martin of Scottsbluff. Neighbors mourn 6 children who died in fire pered, emphasizing the "when," "they'll still be my best friends. God might change them, but I'll know them.

I'll be able to tell." "The kids were everybody's kids," said Del-phine Ellis, a bus driver who lives across the street. "It hurts so much. I went to work today just so I could forget." Police say five of 29-year-old Vashti Jamison's children died: Cordesia, Odell, Vashti, and twins Jaleel and Jesica, 19 months old. A 5-year-old cousin, Kevin Jamison, also died. Two other siblings Keith, 11, and 8-year-old Lakisha escaped with minor injuries.

Two other children who lived there were not in the house at the time, police said. The fire started when Jamison went around the corner to walk a friend home, police said. down the street and sometimes blocks away. The Jamison children were known as the "home team." "They'd come up to an adult, look up at you and say, 'Hey what's your said Leon Davis, who lives two doors down. Others spoke of a well mannered but boisterous bunch, a group so close that they shared all their toys and traveled the block together as a small, smiling army.

They'd wheel around the twins in a double stroller friends dubbed the "dirty bus." So many kids from one family that few on the block knew all their names. "Fat Mama Cheeseburger," one child was called. And "Mookie," Cordesia Jamison, ran around so fast that Ellis, the bus driver, promised to sponsor her as an Olympic sprinter. She had left her children with a 16-year-old neighbor. Witnesses said the fire broke out during a brief period when the teen-ager left the front stoop.

The two-story home had no smoke detectors, authorities said. On the street Monday, the children's clothing lay in a sooty, soaked clump. Atop it was a green scooter said to be their favorite toy. Investigators determined the fire started in a living-room chair, but they did not know how. "I saw no evidence of an accelerant," said Lt.

Harry Young, a city fire marshal. "I don't know why this happened yet." During summer, the Jamisons' block in south Philadelphia is packed with children because it is a distribution point for a neighborhood breakfast and lunch program. Many are from Investigators find that the fire started in a chair in the living room, but they do not know how. Philadelphia, Pa. (AP) Spectators and television crews lined her block Monday, but 5-year-old DeVora Trapp walked among the tall people and found only loneliness.

Six of DeVora's favorite playmates died together early Sunday, caught in a fire that gutted a row house. Two children survived. DeVora slept through the flames, the sirens and the visit by the coroner's van. Her mother told her the next morning. On Monday, she remained empty-eyed.

"When they come back to life," she whis Smoking ban for L. A. put on hold Chicago Tribune Los Angeles, Calif. Moviemakers may have banned the cigarettes rom the hands of their leading men and ladies, but Hollywood's restaurateurs are not giving in so easily to the anti-smoking trend. A proposed ban on smoking in Los Angeles restaurants was put on hold at the last moment Monday when a coalition of smokers and business owners came up with more than 96,000 signatures on petitions against the clean air law.

If 58,275 of those signatures are validated by election officials this week, the proposed ban will be put to voters in a citywide referendum next year. If not, the ban could go into effect as early as Friday, making Los Angeles the largest city in the nation with smoke-free eateries. RidgwayDies With radar as his eyes, blind sailor begins attempt to cross Atlantic Ocean 3PW A. 'li 'C L- A I) Baltimore, Md. (AP) A sailor equipped with a talking compass and Braille maps set out Monday to become the first blind person to sail solo across the Atlantic.

Hank Dekker, 58, waved to 100 well-wishers, including Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, as his 30-foot sailboat 7 i 4ll .1 1 I 'jrTSr i a lW -HI. In 1983, Hank Dekker became the first blind person to sail from San Francisco to Hawaii, surviving Hurricane Henrietta. darkness out of the corner of his left eye, is deaf in his left ear and uses a hearing aid in his right. The boat contains radar, charts and other equipment especially designed for the blind.

He said he is making the journey to show the world the blind can accomplish the same things the sighted can. "But first and foremost this voyage is for me; you have to take care of yourself," Dekker said. "For me, it's the challenge of doing things. I want to be the best sailor I can be." Dekker, of San Francisco, is a former car salesman who took up sailing after he lost his sight to glaucoma 16 years ago. In 1983, he became the first blind person to sail from San Francisco to Hawaii, surviving Hurricane Henrietta in his 24-foot boat.

He won third place three years later in a solo trans-Pacific race involving two dozen sighted participants. He is not the first blind sailor to attempt a trans-Atlantic journey. Jim Dickson of Washington attempted the crossing in 1987. Dickson made the mistake of relying entirely on electronics, Dekker said. Most of his equipment is the same as that used by a sighted sailor.

Suicide victim's motives won't be probed Washington, D.C. (AP) The Justice Department probe of the death of White House counsel Vincent Foster will not delve into why he apparently committed suicide, a department spokesman said Monday. "To call it an investigation conveys more than is going on here," spokesman Carl Stern said. "This is not an investigation in the sense that one conducts a criminal investigation. There.are no legions of FBI agents checking police blotters." Foster, 48, the father of three, was found dead in a secluded park along the Potomac River last Tuesday.

He had been shot once in the head with an antique revolver that was found in his hand, and the U.S. Park Police said an autopsy "was conducive to a self-inflicted wound." The childhood friend of President Clinton was buried Friday in their hometown of Hope, Ark. Gen. Matthew Ridgway died Monday near Pittsburgh of cardiac arrest at age 98. Ridgway, who once estimated he saw more combat than any other general during World War II, commanded the 82nd Airborne Division and the 18th Airborne Corps during that war, as well as the 8th Army and the United Nations Command in Korea.

He also served as U.S. commander-in-chief for the Far East, supreme commander for the Allied Powers in Japan and supreme allied commander in Europe. NFB was towed out of the city's Inner Harbor. He will be towed to Cape May, N.J., and set sail on his trek Wednesday or Thursday. He hopes to arrive in Plymouth, England, in 18 to 28 days and is to be greeted there by representatives of his sponsor the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind, after which his ship is named.

Harkin is an NFB board member. Dekker is blind in his right eye, has pinhole recognition of light and Associated Press Hank Dekker waves goodbye in Baltimore's Inner Harbor as the blind, hearing-impaired sailor sets out to cross the Atlantic. How About a Test Drive? Clinton agrees to hold summit on problems facing rural U.S. i I 4 iff WrV Concerns about agriculture, rural manufacturing and health-care reform are likely to be discussed. Mi 51.

.1 lili Paul Simon and Carol Moseley Braun, and Rep. George Sangmeister, all Democrats. President Bush rejected a similar request last year, lawmakers said. "I think as governor of Arkansas, the president has developed an appreciation for and is more sensitive to the needs of rural America," said Democratic Rep. Jerry Costello, who signed the letter to Clinton.

Costello, whose southwestern Illinois district is 35 percent rural, said small towns often lack doctors and medical services, direct routes to cities and a trained work force attractive to prospective employers. Low commodity prices also contribute to rural problems, Durbin said. Between 1982 and 1987, he said, the number of farms in Illinois dropped by 10 percent while the value of Illinois farms fell by one-quarter. "Too many family farms and small businesses are struggling, and too many people are leaving rural America in search of work," Durbin said. Fewer than one in 50 Americans live on the farm, according to the Census Bureau and the Agriculture Department.

The 1990 count was 4.6 million, half of whom lived in the Midwest, and that total was down from 6.1 million a decade earlier. Only 45 percent of farm dwellers derived their principal income from farming. Oh i .14 i Washington, D.C. (AP) The White House has agreed to a request by farm-state legislators to hold a summit on the problems of rural America, and has directed Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy to organize the meeting. "The problems of rural America can no longer be ignored and deserve sustained attention," President Clinton wrote Rep.

Dick Durbin, and Sen. Byron Dor-gan, who sought the summit. Those problems "go well beyond agriculture," said Clinton's letter, which the lawmakers released Monday. "Rural manufacturing is also under great pressure, and national policy in areas such as health-care reform, communications and transportation has only added to the pressure." The lawmakers, joined by 26 House members and 16 senators, asked Clinton in June to bring together farm belt legislators, farmers and farm groups and develop a plan to "restore economic health" to farm states. Other Illinois lawmakers asking for the summit were Sens.

f. Associated Press Zebadiah Hammond-Stone of Davison, Flint. He spotted the battery-powered jeep checks out a potential birthday present in while on a weekend drive with his parents..