Indiana Gazette from Indiana, Pennsylvania • 4

Thursday, April 30, 1998 Pop. 4 The Indiana Gazette Israel celebrates 50 years of statehood By DtNA KRAFT Associated Press Writer JERUSALEM Thev danced in the streets. By The Associated Press 'ayment small comfort to clients PITTSBURGH Monev manager John Gardner Black's agreement to wrapped themselves in flags and marveled at what they had achieved. For Israel's people, today marked a festive finale to celebrations of SO tumultuous years of statehood. For Palestinians, however, the occasion was a bitter reminder of their own lack of an independent state.

pay millions to help settle fraud claims against his firms is small comfort for bis aggrieved clients, a school district manager said. The perilous birth of the Jewish state a "we, as well as au me ouier scnool districts, are out a lot oi money, ana $3-6 million is not going to cover it," Walter Clark, business manager of the Clearfield Area School District, said Wednesday. "Where are we going to find the other 583 million?" he said. Black is accused of losing $71 million of his clients' money through bad investing half-century ago the anniversary of the declaration of the nation of Israel began Wednes Mea Shearim, dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jews tore Israeli flags from carl driving through the area. Many ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel do not recogni2e the 50th anniversary because they believe the creation of a Jewish state is a blasphemy before the coming of the Messiah.

Hard-line Jewish settlers and Israeli peace activists also appeared headed toward an Independence Day confrontation. Settlers were gathering to lay a cornerstone at the site of a controversial planned Jewish neighborhood in disputed east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state. The Israeli group Peace Now held a counter-demonstration at the site of the Har Homa development, whose groundbreaking more than a year ago brought talks to a screeching halt; "It's not the ideal way to spend your Indeipen-dence Day, but we must show that this is dangerous to the country," said peace activist Gilad Haymaan, a 25-year-old student. The celebrations themselves set off months of bickering. In one last-minute fight, lawmakers from religious parties tried to get the Supreme Court to stop a striptease-style dance that was to be part of the main Ansbacher, a 55-year-old Jenisalemite, said it wouldn't have been a truly Israeli event without some controversy.

"People argue when they buy bread she said. "It's something In the Israeli character." za tonight at a Jerusalem stadium. Vice President Al Gore, the guest of honor, arrived today, by far the highest-ranking foreign dignitary in attendance. Israel, which has fought a war every decade of its existence, used the occasion to show off its-military muscle. Fighter jets thundered overhead in formation, and the navy staged an offshore review.

Gunboats cut through the blue water while thousands watched from the beaches. Security was tight for the celebrations. sands of troops were deployed at sensitive sites, and snipers and bomb squads stood ready. As a precaution, Israel sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip, barring most Palestinians from entering Israel. For the Palestinians, the anniversary was ho celebration.

It was a day of mourning. Palestinians call Israel's creation "al naqba" the catastrophe and blame the Jewish state for usurping their land. In the West Bank refugee camp where he was bora, Sami Rafai, 29, couldn't bring himself to watch the Israeli fireworks off on the horizon. "The celebrations are like knives in the i Amid the festivities, the fault lines in Israeli society were on clear display, particularly the rifts between religious and secular Jews and the political left and right. In the religious Jerusalem neighborhood of ana misappropriation.

In a consent order Wednesday, Black agreed to pay the sum, which includes $3.6 million in misappropriated funds, $326. B83 in interest and a $500,000 fine, said Merri Jo Gillette, a lawyer for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. day nigni ny tne Jewish calendar, ana tans on May 14 by the Western one was hailed as miraculous despite pressing present-day problems, including the breakdown of the Mideast peace process. "We forget that in SO years, the people here made a successful country, even with all our BiacK ma not admit or deny tne sues civu allegations oi irauo in me order approved by S.

District Judge Donetta Ambrose. He has not been charged with a crime. wars, said David oen-Yaxov, 41, leeaing nis little girl a hot dog as she sat in her stroller in a Jerusalem pedestrian Abortion pill effective, study says A carnival atmosphere at the opening of festivities Wednesday prevailed into the early morning in city streets, packed with thousands of BOSTON The abortion oill RU-186 successfullv ended pregnancies in revelers. 92 percent of women tested in the United States, according to research published today. Today, families carrying barbecue grills, tents and bags of food made then wav to parKS for a day of togetherness.

Celebrations were to be: capped with a glitzy song-ana-dance extravagan me drug nas oeen widely tested and used in Europe, nut tne ooa ana Drug administration requested additional studies of its safety and effectiveness in the United States. The results are published in today's issue of the New Eogland Journal of Medicine. The drug's developer says it hopes to have the pill on the market sometime next vear. In the studv. the first formal tests in the United States, the drug was slightly less effective than in earlier European where it triggered abortions in 96 percent to 99 percent of women.

ml -v. 1 1 tne researchers said the piu may have appeared to wore less wen in this test because U.S. doctors are inexperienced at giving abortion medicines, or because of the way the study was designed. Man tells reporter he killed his baby BUTLER, Pa. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a man accused of killing his baby and dumping the body along a roadside.

Steven Lewis Duffy confessed to the crime to a television news reporter Tuesday as police escorted him from a plane at the Butler County airport. Students suspended Continued from Page 1 discovered the death Naturally, (the students) said it was a joke," said DeRubis. "But'we have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to things like School officials are investigating the easel It was unclear, what provoked the students to threaten tlieir classmates, and whether the students had planned a method of carrying out the killings, DeHiibis A school assembly was held Tuesday to explain the situation to teachers and the student body, said Eric Hicks, the school board president. A second assembly is planned next week. Criminal charges are not likely to be filed by the school district, DeRu-; bis said.

1 Last Friday, a 14-year-old was 4 charged with killing an eighth-grade wnen wiAtt-iv reporter Tonia Caruso asKed, uki you louyourson; Duffy looked at her, then at the ground, and said "Yes, I did." The 27-year-old Butler Township man refused to answer other questions and police put him in a car Tuesday and took him tojail. He taces a preliminary neanng at a.m. May it. Duffy was returned from a casino in Atlantic City, N. where he was arrested Monday.

He is charged with killing bis 6-monfh-old son, orenaan, atter arguing wiin ins estrangea wue, jennuer. Butler County District Attorney Tim McCune said Wednesday that prosecutors would seek the death penalty in the case. He said he expected an autopsy to snow tnat Brenoan was sunocaiea. i ne autopsy nas oeen done, but officials are awaiting test results before releasing a cause of death. Company tries to recover satellite -NEW YORK In order to bring a broken satellite back to Earth, its creators are sending it to the moon.

Satellite manufacturer Hughes Electronics Corp. said it would try to fix the orbit of an unusable satellite by sending it around the moon to use its gravity to shoot it back toward Earth. The satellite, originally called Asiasat 3, was launched in December from Kazakhstan to provide television and telephone service in Asia. But the Russian-built Proton launching rocket malfunctioned, leaving the COSTLY STRIKE P'eVhitle Knudsen posts sold-oirt sign at a gas station in central Copenhagen Thursday. On the fourth day of the national strike in Denmark, gasoline and other-supplies are becoming expensive and scarce.

(AP photo) Property! tax plan approved satellite in an oron too low and too tinea. The satellite was declared a total loss and its owner. But engineers at Hughes, which built the satellite, said its onboard rocket motor could be used to send it to the moon. The moon's gravity would then be used to slingshot the satellite into an orbit around the Earth where tl could be used, though not for its original purpose. IRA refuses to disarm Tax plans7 key provisions BELFAST, Northern Ireland The Irish Republican Army refused science teacher.

The shooting in the northwest Pennsylvania town followed one last month in Jonesboro, in December in West Paducah, and last October in Pearl, Miss. The toll: 11 killed and 25 wounded. Legislators divided Continued from Page 1 Stapleton said that he has voted seven times for tax reform and six of those seven times he has voted for the measure. He could not support the present package, he said, because he is concerned that some of his constituents could end up paying more in earned income tax than they would save from the elimination of nuisance taxes and the reduction in the school district's property tax. He released statistics from the Senate Democratic Caucus that show how much Indiana County school districts could reduce their real estate taxes if they repealed the nuisance taxes and instituted the 1.5 percent earned income tax.

According to those figures, Penns Manor would be able to reduce property taxes by 27.29, the highest amount of any of the county districts. Marion Center's rale of reduction was set at 11.24 percent, the lowest reduction amount, "That was not enough." StaDleton today to disarm as part of Northern Ireland's proposed peace accord out cleared tne way lor lis allied bum ein party to accept the agreement. In a statement, the IHA reaffirmed its willingness to abide by its July 1997 cease-fire. But toe outlawed group dismissed the section of the Anril 10 peace accord that requires Northern Ireland's rival paramilitary groups to "decommission" weaponry, starting in June and finishing within two years. Pro-British Protestant leaders, united in anger, said the IRA and Sinn Fein are trying to have the benefits of peace without the obligations.

earned income tax can increase property tax rates. There are sue which a school district must obtain from the county court. A district will be required to provide clear and convincing evidence of the need to increase property taxes. The homestead exemption, which changed the uniformity section of the state constitution to allow lower taxes on homes but not businesses, would be the sole means of reducing property taxes. A homestead is defined as a taxpayers primary residence.

Rented homes or secondary homes would not qualify for reductions. By The Associated Press A glance at key provisions in the plan to reduce property taxes: Would apply only to school districts. Counties and ties are not included. 4 Would allow school districts to impose an earned income tax at a rate up to 1.5 percent (most districts now levy that tax at a 0.5 percent rate) Voter approval would be required before the district can impose an earned income tax. Voter approval would be required before a district imposing (he Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, bead of the biggest Protestant parry, said wnn ein was ineugwie to participate in tne new Belfast adininistration until the IRA started disarming.

"Sinn Fein and the IRA are one and the same." said Trimble, who accepts the accord even though it has split his party. "You cannot say that there's a peace agreement if some party has a private army armed to tne teetn reaoy tor Continued from Page 1 tax, after having imposed the tax on income earners. Voters would also give their approval before a district adopis the new system. Although the legislation provides exceptions to the back-end referen- durn, such as recovery from an emergency, the Pennsylvania School Boards Association doubts that voters will approve a tax in-crease when additional money is needed in the future. The back-end referendum really ties the hands of local school boards," said association spokes- man Tom Gentzel.

"I think a lot of districts are going to steer away from this. There's little flexibility. During negotiations between the administration and Republican leaders, Ridge would not support the plan unless it provided a back-end referendum. The administration cit- ed polls in which people said school taxes were the most burdensome. "The front- and back-end referendum in this bill gives taxpayers unprecedented power to control their local school district property taxes power that in my view is long overdue," Ridge said.

Over the last four years, school districts have raised property taxes an average 21 percent, according to an analysis provided by the House Appropriations Committee. lThe original notion of tax reform was that you have a menu of taxes, which we thought made a lot of sense," Gentzel said. Legislators who voted for the plan still questioned its effectiveness. "1 doubt if it will be utilized by many of my school districts, if any," said Sen. J.

Doyle Corman, R-Cen-tre. "But you should take a half-a- -( Stodks taxpayer's primary residence. A rented home or secondary' home would not qualify for reductions. A district would then impose a tax at a rate up to 1.5 percent on income earned by residents, but since most districts now impose such a levy at 0.5 percent, the maximum would really be 1 percent. For income-earners paying the Philadelphia non-resident wage tax, the proposal includes a small tax credit on their state personal income tax.

The credit would only be available to school districts that lower property taxes and impose the earned income tax. If a district fails to place on the ballot within two years a referendum to adopt the new tax system, then taxpayers would have recourse through circulating petitions and forming a tax-study commission. said. Stapleton and Steelman disliked the tax reform package because it only applied to school districts and not to municipalities and counties. "This is so pathetically inadequate," Steelman said this morning.

"We'll keep trying to improve it." A primary concern for Steelman is the requirement that voters approve any property tax increase imposed by a school district after it enacts a 1.5 earned income tax. Such a vote will pit parents of school-age children against residents with no children in a district, she said. "It is creating a kind of class warfare or group warfare." She said she would like to see the state assume more financial responsibility foreducational costs. "We need to give the districts more flexibility." loaf when it's being offered, then come back tomorrow and get (be rest." Despite the school boards opposition, the GOP-controlled Senate vot-' ed 27-23, with three Republicans voting against the bill because it did not include other local governments or other tax-shifting options. The House voted 140-53, following a long debate in which Democrats argued senior citizens who are rent- ers would not gel a tax break.

Once a district has eliminated any ''nuisance taxes" it imposes per-capita, occupation privilege and or' occupation assessment tax it would then be able to reduce property taxes by as much as 50 percent of the median assessed value of a property using the homestead exemption A homestead is defined as a NEW YORK CAP OowOm U5-H i OPnCo 4S 13-1 Stacits- Last Otf. EitKctfafc 72 7-W PECO -rlW MACOrz 1ST 3-14 1 5-14 EOS Can 4-1 TU nM t90 ATlTCorft. 9-1i 1 $-1fi Ewon 71 Mi PPG lofls 71 Ai'rw FV.CCP 76 1S-14 9tnry JC TiVt I4 Air-Touch 53 -Wi FoIVtftw I5-T Stf PeiCo 39 1S-I AtcevMurr. JJS '-s GPU -S-1 Potefctt M4 V. AlisEnersv X'-i -3-l GTCo St HI -1J-14 ffiS-1 to Afcaa 771-T4 t7-14 CtrCarp 3ei-lt PractGrr a AHonePrtJ -IVs Gf.Dvnm 5BCCocr.rYH fl'i Ger-IEitc 1S-U Satefnor.aFd ii 'A Afros CS-U CciMim 471J-14 WnRot 3tH IS-W Amcsl 4 11-14 3-14 GvnVofcti LVf TCWCor.v IIVa rmsrwirJ lJ4 -I'i 17i Tta i4 AsrsDlB 'it Goodrich S3 UAL Core 811-H i A.fRitS tV- 7-U toevwi tH'ft USVfeMCm 1 1-14 31-lt Wi Hwwe jn -r 1r BrtSciTt) IMriGiSol lit- USX-fAaraihn MJ- BweiC i 14 'i BW.StMl 1S7-14 ffiMj 114 1 USK-USS 39 i 1 1-U BrnseX Ji I-I4 lrtipcr S2W -14 UnCarbd CBSO-s S5M4 Kmart 1713-14 -S-U UfBr.PflcH S5 Cnevror.

t3 1J-14 -14 LIMvASEV UrurnCo 17 Ornir 7.14 LsckKVrl 117-14 Ji, CahmbE9 LorsCo ftt -MS W4irt A 13-H W7" -1 LwcrvtTess 7i VW-ttatctr li-H hit CarYtwt WOrrr.lfT! 1 -4 WacJwvth Xl't Cor.Eefivir) tn -7-16 Wrck H7Vi -1 ZenE -1-J6 Obstacles remain between U.S., China Dial Extension 1726 for lottery numbers. "We understand your concerns," Albright said over breakfast before going on to meetings with Jiang and Premier Zhu Rongji. Clinton already has decided to sell nuclear equipment to China and to permit China limited use of its rockets to launch American satellite. "We will consider future waivers, in the context of progress on China's part" in lowering barriers to American imports, Albright said. Albright's offer reflected both China's growing power hi the world economy and the impact trade barriers have on American sales here.

The deficit in trade grew 26 percent last year to nearly sio billion. Alluding to Congress' irritation with China's restrictions, Albright said "deficits of this magnitude create serious political problems back home, particularly when American industrial, agricultural and service exports face significant market barriers here." The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, meanwhile, said, "The U.S. government should make a wise choice and lift the sanctions." The official, Tang Guoqiang, also told reporters the two sides were preparing for a successful summit. sure he will like it," Jiang said of the pavilion in which he will talk to Clinton. Earlier, Albright suggested the administration was prepared to ease some U.S.

sanctions imposed on China after the 1939 crackdown on democracy demonstrators at Tian-anmen Square. She made the offer at a meeting with American business executives, whose opportunities for profit in the burgeoning Chinese market are impeded by the suspension in arms trade, export licenses for satellites and restrictions on insuring investments here. Continued from Page 1 ni2ation, the international rule-setting body for trade, and coping with energy and environmental prob- lems, the U.S. official said. "I bring you very warm personal greetings from President Clinton, and he is very much looking forward to his visit in June," Albright said.

When she handed Jiang a large envelope with Clinton's letter the Chinese president laughed and gave her one of his own. "I have a reply, but not to this one," he said. Jiang conversed with Albright in English and showed her renovations being made for the summit. "I am Lottery director Daniel K. Cook said 225 players matched four ntim-bers and won WW each; 6,992 players matched three numbers and won $11 each; and 76,071 players matched two numbers and won SI each.

The winning numbers drawn Wednesday in the "Pennsylvania Cash 5" game were: 09, 18. 25, 31 and 36. HARRISBURG (AP) Here are the winning numbers selected Wednesday in tbe Pennsylvania Stat Lottery: Daily 5- Bigl 4-M-i Two players matched all five winning numbers drawn in Wednesday's "Pennsylvania Cash 5" game and will share a jackpot worth a lottery official said. Each winner will receive $150,000..