Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • Page 12

A12 THE HARTFORD COURANT Thursday, August 12, 1999 The Nation Briefs Tornado Hits Salt Lake City Twister Leaves Mile-Long Path Of Destruction fiitetnfc) if I I I II By TIM KORTE Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY A rare tornado swept through downtown on Wednesday, tossing trucks and trees around and shredding tents set up for a convention. At least one person was killed and about 100 were injured. "It couldn't have picked a worse place," said National Weather Service meteorologist David Ho-gan. "The chance of it hitting a city right smack where it did today is pretty slim." When the tornado tore through the city about 1 p.m., power lines were ripped down, roofs were torn off and windows were blown out. Helicopters landed in the streets to ferry the injured to hospitals.

Gov. Mike Leavitt flew over the mile-long path of destruction before declaring a state of emergency. The black funnel cloud also damaged the roofs of the Delta Center, home of the Utah Jazz basketball team, and the Salt Palace Convention Center, which was hosting an outdoor retailers show. The streets were littered with shredded tents set up for the convention. Robert Stock of Toronto, a sales representative for a rock-climbing company, said he saw the roof of the Delta Center lift up when the tornado passed over.

"It peeled it right back, just like an orange peel," he said. Dan Groff of San Diego, attending the convention, said he saw several injured people. "I helped one guy who had a beam fall on him," Groff said. "It just crushed him." Scott Ellenwood, an employee of an audio-visual company who had been setting up a sound system for the convention, looked for a place to hide when the twister came. "I thought, "This is it.

We're going to said Daren Loyola, who was working with Ellenwood. REUTERS SEVEN MINUTES AFTER A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH was issued, a tornado ripped through downtown Salt least one person and injuring about 1 00. Meteorologists estimated the winds hit about 1 00 mph. rf 'J Ken Connaughton, the mayor's spokesman. Crowds gathered on street corners to watch the twister over the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Salt Lake Temple, which was not damaged.

A severe thunderstorm watch was issued at 12:48 p.m., and the twister touched down about seven minutes later. "We saw what was going on," said David Toronto, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. "But to look at it and say there's a tornado and it's going to hit downtown we didn't have that information because of the rapid development." fWy I'. 2 Hake UTAH City i Palace wk Panftarlum 1 HI 1 hi NATION Wife Dismisses Reagan Rumors LOS ANGELES Former President Ronald Reagan is in slow decline from Alzheimer's disease, but there has been no sudden change in his condition, Nancy Reagan said Wednesday in an effort to put to rest rumors that he is near death. "The rumors are absolutely false," Nancy Reagan said in a statement read to The Associated Press by the Reagans' spokeswoman, Joanne Drake.

"President Reagan suffers from Alzheimer's, a progressive disease. However, there has been no dramatic change in his condition that would be cause for the alarming rumors that we are hearing," Nancy Reagan said in the statement Ford Honored At White House WASHINGTON Twenty-five years to the week after he was thrust into the presidency by Watergate, Gerald Ford returned to the White House on Wednesday to be praised as the steady hand that helped America heal Presidents Clinton and Ford strode side-by-side into the East Room, where Ford and seven other people received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. "Steady, trustworthy, Gerald Ford ended a long national nightmare," Clinton said, referring to the Watergate scandal and President Nixon's resignation on Aug. 9, 1974. Ford then became president, and served 1 out what would have been Nixon's second term.

Giuliani Edges Closer To Bid COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Wednesday that it looks as if he will be running for the U.S. Senate next year. Opening up the floor to questions after speaking at a luncheon gathering of local Republican women at a hotel near the Baseball Hall of Fame, Giuliani was hit immediately with the question: Are you going to run? "It looks that way," the Republican mayor answered, the closest he's come to date to announcing his candidacy for the Senate seat being vacated next year by Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It's a race that could pit the mayor against Hil- lary Rodham Clinton.

Fen-Phen Trial Opens NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. One of the manufacturers of the diet drug combination fen-phen misled doctors about the damage the pills could do, a lawyer said as opening arguments began Wednesday in a class-action lawsuit. Three women are suing Madison, N.J.-based American Home Products Corp. on behalf of 94,000 New Jersey residents who are healthy but want money for a lifetime of medical checkups. Attorney Esther Berezofsky said the pills had increased the plaintiffs' risk for heart and lung problems.

It is the first class-action lawsuit over fen-phen to come to trial, and the only one seeking checkups rather than financial awards. If the company loses the New Jersey case, it could be forced to pay more than $1 billion over the next decade. Immigration Rate Declines WASHINGTON The United States granted legal permanent residence to 660,477 foreigners last year, marking the lowest level of legal immigration in a decade as the federal immigration service struggled to deal with a growing backlog of green card applications. The figures for fiscal 1998, announced Wednesday by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, reflected a 17 percent drop from 1997 and a 28 percent drop from the year before that From Wire Services ij Scout Chapter On Gays: 'Don't TelT Tornado in Salt Lake City Here is a look at the path of the tornado. Source: AP research gay Scout in New Jersey, said the written policy in the Rhode Island case is the first time he is aware of that the Boy Scouts have put something in writing on the issue.

"There is no true national policy that the members have adopted," he said. "In past court cases they've defended the policy as a flat ban and they've made references to 'don't ask, don't tell'" He said a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy is "inconsistent with the principles of scouting, such as being open and truthfuL" reduction in the number of women who have to have an amnio," said Wald, chairman of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London. The screening also could reassure expectant parents their baby doesn't have Down syndrome, a condition in which an extra chromosome causes mental retardation and physical abnormalities. About 1 in 700 babies has Down syndrome, which is marked by a broad, flat face with slanting eyes -and an early death. Older women have a higher risk of delivering a baby with Down syndrome.

Wald's research is reported in today's edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. "For women who don't want an invasive procedure, this offers them a very viable choice," said Dr. Anne Summers, director of the Maternal Serum Screening Program at North York General Hospital in Toronto. Wald and colleagues developed a complicated computer program that integrates results of tests in both trimesters. 3 a I N.

Telnplt St i fcE3i fWm I -lf BfSalt I'JfiSL. the sexual orientation of their members is none of their business." The chapter said the statement had been approved by and written in consultation with the Scouts' national organization, which on Wednesday referred calls back to Rhode Island. The New Jersey Supreme Court recently ruled that the Boy Scouts' ban on gays is illegal under the state's anti-discrimination laws. The Boy Scouts are appealing that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court Evan Wolfson, a New York attorney who successfully represented a By MICHAEL MELLO Associated Press PROVIDENCE, R.I.

A local chapter of the Boy Scouts of America has acknowledged that a Scout can remain a Scout even if he's gay, as long as he isn't open about it. The Narragansett Council of the Scouts issued a written statement late Tuesday in response to controversy over a 16-year-old Eagle Scout who has threatened legal action, claiming he was discriminated against because he is a homosexual. The statement similar to the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, Lake City, Utah, Wednesday, killing at Georgia Teen To Be Tried As Adult In School Shooting By JAMES PILCHER Associated Press CONYERS, Ga. A 15-year-old boy accused of shooting six classmates at his high school in May should be tried as an adult a judge ruled Wednesday. Juvenile Court Judge William Schneider said he believes society's need to prevent such shootings outweighs T.J.

Solomon's interests. He ordered the case transferred to Superior Court, where Solomon could face life in prison if convicted of aggravated assault and other charges. The maximum juvenile sentence would have been 60 months. Solomon, a sophomore at Heritage High School, is accused of opening fire May 20 with two guns in the commons area of the school 20 miles east of Atlanta Six students were injured. The judge's ruling came at the end of the three-day hearing.

Prosecutors said Solomon intended to hurt people and should be tried as an adult Defense attorneys Don Samuel and Ed Garland argued that Solomon is mentally ill and should be committed to a psychiatric hospital. Garland said Solomon has the maturity level of an 11-year-old. A state investigator testified that Solomon left a note referring to the shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. Schneider made note of that in his decision. "The fact that the child has attempted to copy a heinous, premeditated crime and showed such disrespect for the safety of others makes the public's interest to treat him as an adult paramount to any interest of the individual child," he SidcL AP "I thought about my wife and my daughter.

I tried to run, but the wind was so strong that I felt like I was going nowhere." Mayor Deedee Corradini said 40 of the injured were transported to hospitals, 12 in serious or critical condition. "Our first priority is people. We're not sure we have everyone out of this tent area near the convention center yet," said Corradini, adding that dogs were being used to search the debris. The American Red Cross was sending additional blood supplies to Salt Lake hospitals. "The Utah Highway Patrol is closing all major routes into downtown because of traffic congestions, accidents and debris," said reaffirmed the group's position that being gay is "inconsistent with" the oath all Scouts must take in which they vow to be "morally straight" and "clean in thought, word and deed." Still, the statement suggested that Scouts who are covertly gay won't be pushed out, by specifying that the organization "does not accept those who openly self-identify as homosexuals." "It sounds to me like the Boy Scouts are in retreat," said Mary Bonauto, an attorney with the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston.

"They acknowledge "We've been tearing down symbols that have been in this country" for a long time. Jackson County isn't the only school district in Kentucky or the country where the Ten Commandments are on display in schools. Tonya Adams, principal of Union Chapel Elementary School in Russell County, which has had the Ten Commandments posted for years, said she has never received any complaints about it In Adams County, Ohio, a group of ministers paid to place Ten Commandments tablets outside four high schools to counter "moral decline." Jeff Vessels, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said the organization just became aware of the situation in Jackson County and has not had time to consider a response. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a Kentucky case that posting the Ten Commandments violated the Constitution's ban on government-established religion.

Ten Commandments Posted In Kentucky Study Cites Accuracy In Down Syndrome Test By LINDA A. JOHNSON Associated Press Researchers seeking a safer way to detect Down syndrome in a fetus say combining blood and ultrasound tests from the first and second trimesters would be more accurate than standard screenings and reduce the need for riskier testing. The method would spare many women the need for a definitive test called amniocentesis, in which a needle withdraws fluid from the amniotic sac. That triggers miscarriage about 1 percent of the time. Compared with the amniocentesis testing that is standard in the United States, the new system would prevent the miscarriages of about 1,400 healthy fetuses each year and detect about 800 more fetuses with the chromosomal abnormality, said Dr.

Nicholas Wald, the lead researcher. He said the new system would reduce by 80 percent the number of women for whom amniocentesis would be recommended. "You've got an improvement in detection, but the real gain is the Associated Press MCKEE, Ky. With essentially no community opposition, volunteers installed plaques bearing the Ten Commandments in every classroom in a rural eastern Kentucky school district before classes began on Wednesday. The Jackson County school board and superintendent made the decision as part of "an effort to start having good morals in school because of all the violent issues that have been showing up," said Betty Bond, principal of Jackson County High School.

Timothy Crawford, the district's attorney, said he is concerned about lawsuits, but believes the Ten Commandment plaques in the district's five schools are allowed by law because they were paid for and posted by local volunteers. Robert Lakes, a business teacher at Jackson County High School, said the Ten Commandments were posted in the classroom when he was growing up. "It's like the flag," Lakes said..