The Times Herald from Port Huron, Michigan • Page 10

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2000 1 0A TIMES HERALD, PORT HURON, MICHIGAN WE WANT YOUR COMMENTS Nation World Our national and world coverage is directed by Judith McLean, assistant managinq editor. She can be reached at 98'9-6255. U.S.A. BRIEFING TODAY'S NEWS SUMMARY Nichols claims double jeopardy violation OKLAHOMA CITY Bombing conspirator Terry Nichols Area affected by tornadoes asked a judge Monday to dismiss state murder charges against him, claiming they violate the double jeopardy guarantee against being tried twice for the same crime. Lawyers for Mr.

Nichols argued it is unconstitutional to try him in Oklahoma because he has already been convicted in federal court for his role in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. At a trial in Denver, he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter nnH vncniriev tt iivp upnnnn nf mncc Storms slam South, leave 22 dead .1 GEORGIA K-Sj Worth Tilt lAreaof I A if greatest lj Baker tff s) damage Dotnan "mMmmH Colquitt Millet I t5BEE 1 alabama i ifciiiiim i i 0 Terry Nichols destruction. He was sentenced to life in prison, Co-conspirator Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death. Football star Lewis free on $1 million bond ATLANTA A judge set bond at 1 million Monday for football star Ray Lewis and said he could stay at his home in Maryland while awaiting trial on murder charges. Various NFL figures, including Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell, testified for Mr.

Lewis during his bond hearing, calling him dependable and a "good citizen." Mr. Lewis, 24, and two companions are charged with murder in two stabbing deaths during a brawl at a post-Super Bowl party on Jan. 31. Mr. Lewis has been held without bail since the day of the slayings.

One of his two co-defendants turned himself in Monday; the other is at large. Study: Fewer blacks get glaucoma surgery CHICAGO A study of Medicare claims found blacks were only half as likely as whites to undergo surgery for glaucoma, the most common cause of blindness in black Americans. The researchers, whose study appears in the February issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, said the reasons could include lack of healthcare access, inadequate education about the disease, overtreat-ment of whites and racial bias. An estimated 3 million Americans have glaucoma. Spacecraft begins orbiting asteroid Eros LAUREL, Md.

With near flawless precision, a spacecraft slipped into orbit around the asteroid Eros, becoming the first manmade satellite of an asteroid. The craft now starts a yearlong close-up study of the potato-shaped space rock, hoping to determine its origins and help scientists mount a strategy to protect Earth from boulders from outer space. A short rocket filing on Monday changed the orbital path of the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft to allow it to settle into an orbit of Eros. By JOHN BAZEMORE, The Associated Press DEVASTATION: A block of destroyed homes can be seen after a tornado struck Camilla, early Monday. At least 22 people died and more than 100 were injured.

By ERIN McCLAM The Associated Press CAMILLA, Ga. When the tornado that had leveled his house finally moved away, the Rev. Harris Malcom crawled out from under a mattress and looked up into blinding rain and lightning. His living-room rafters were crushed like toothpicks. But poking out from a 3-foot-thick pine tree that caved in his roof were two branches, forming a makeshift cross.

"You find out what kind of faith you've got when something like this happens," the Rev. Malcom, pastor of First Baptist Church in Camilla, said Monday. Although his home was destroyed, he emerged from the tornadoes that hit southwestern Georgia early Monday relatively unscathed. However, at least 22 people died and more than 100 were injured in the storms, the state's deadliest twisters since 1936. The oldest victim was 85 years old, the youngest 8 months.

Many likely were killed as they slept, police said. The tornadoes smashed mobile homes, flipped automobiles and demolished trees into splinters. Mitchell County, about 30 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line, was hardest hit, with 14 dead, when two separate twisters cut a 1.5-mile-wide, 10-mile-Iong path of destruction. "It was just total destruction," said Kenneth Hill of Camilla, who spent Monday night at a shelter after a tree crashed through his roof. "Mobile homes on top of mobile homes houses blown away." if hi lOOmiles if II Momm i i Atlanta I 1 GEORGIA ALA AccuWeather; Compiled from AP wire WORST TORNADOES A CLOSER LOOK May 31,1985 90 killed in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Ontario.

April More than. 300 killed in "super outbreak" of 148 tornadoes in Midwest. Feb. 21, 1971 110 killed in Mississippi Delta region. April 11, 1965 271 killed in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.

May 25,1955 115 killed in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. June 9,1953 90 killed in Worcester, area. June 8, 1953 142 killed in Michigan and Ohio. May 11, 1953 114 killed in Waco, Texas, area. March 21, 1952 208 killed massive head wounds.

Patients covered the halls, slumped on lobby chairs and packed into the chapel. The hospital lost its water connection and, for several terrifying minutes before a generator kicked in, all electricity. "It was absolutely the worst thing I've ever seen," said Cara Tyson, the hospital's assistant director of nursing, who fought blinding rain and flying tree limbs to get to work. "It was a NORWAY Pair of teachers prepare for trek to South Pole OSLO Headed for the South Pole, teachers Liv Arne-sen and Ann Bancroft will be far from their classrooms but not far from their students. Ms.

Amesen, a Norwegian, and Ms. Bancroft, an American, will be on their own for the 100-day, ski trip to the South Pole and back again. They plan to share their daily experiences with students and others on the Internet. They will leave in November. J.

if I FLA. t.wja FAMILIES OF the injured and missing scrambled to see if loved ones were among the dozens sent to hospitals from Albany, to Tallahassee, Fla. In Camilla, shelters were set up at churches and schools. An American Red Cross shelter offered cots, food, nursing and counseling for storm victims. "People will probably get tired and hungry as the night goes on," Red Cross spokesman Bill Maddox said.

Mitchell County Hospital, a 33-bed facility more accustomed to infant ear infections or an occasional heart attack, resembled a battleground field hospital. More than 120 people swamped the hospital in the early morning. Mothers begged COLOMBIA U.S. seeks to limit role in war against rebels BOGOTA A huge boost in U.S. military aid to fight Colombia's drug-financed rebels won't draw the United States into a "terrible quagmire," President Clinton's top envoy to Colombia said.

Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering, in Bogota to discuss a $1.6 billion anti-narcotics package before Congress, said Monday Washington's role will be limited to providing equipment and training. WORLD NEWS IN BRIEF Cook Thomasville Gradv Valdosta Thomas FLORIDA QTallahasu reports APWm. J. Castello in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas. April 9, 1947 169 killed in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

June 23,1944 150 killed in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland. April 6, 1936 203 killed at Gainesville, Ga. April 5, 1936 216 killed at Tupelo, Miss. March 21, 1932 268 killed in Alabama. March 18, 1925 689 killed In Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

May 18, 1902 114 killed at Goliad, Texas. May 27,1896 300 killed in Missouri and Illinois. Feb. 19, 1884 more than 800 killed in Mississippi, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana. May 6, 1840 317 killed in Natchez, Miss.

disaster people were crying, children were hurt." ONE OR MORE tornadoes also destroyed at least four houses in the Florida Panhandle community of Sand Hills and damaged 40 others. Two tornadoes destroyed at least a structures in Arkansas and injured two people. Trees and power lines were down in parts of Mississippi and Tennessee. YUGOSLAVIA Romanians will not pay for damage from spill BELGRADE Work crews pulled out tons of dead, rotting fish from the Tisza and Danube rivers on Monday as Romania rebuffed compensation demands from Yugoslavia and Hungary for the gold mine spill that contaminated the rivers with cyanide. Romania said it, too, suffered damage when a dam at the Baia Mare gold mine overflowed Jan.

30, sending cyanide into streams that carried the poison west. AFGHANISTAN Former airliner hostages get hero's welcome KANDAHAR Dozens of former hostages about half the passengers aboard a hijacked jetliner returned home Monday to a hero's welcome, kissing the sandy soil and accepting chocolates and turbans from an official. Embracing the Taliban's Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, they gave thanks for their safe return and an end to the ordeal that began Feb. 6 in Kabul, and ended in Britain. On board Monday were 60 adults and 13 children, including 10 crew members of the Ariana Airlines plane.

clashed with a group of blacks seeking to protect the shoeshine man. The police deputized hundreds of white men and boys. They invaded the vibrant black Greenwood section, setting fire to a dozen black churches, five hotels, 31 restaurants, eight doctor's offices and more than 1,000 homes. Estimates of the death toll range as high as 300. Who was at fault and who should pay remain in dispute.

Beyond the Headlines is a look ut the issues and people behind the stories making news. By DENNIS SCHROEDER, The Associated Press MOURNING: Columbine High School students place flowers near a Subway sandwich shop Monday in Littleton, where two of their classmates were found shot to death early Monday. Columbine students shot dead in eatery LITTLETON, Colo. Two Columbine High School sweethearts were found dead early Monday after a shooting at a sandwich shop within sight of their school, compounding the heartbreak in the community that suffered the worst school shooting in U.S. history.

The bodies of Nicholas Kunselman, 15, and Stephanie Hart, 16, were found inside the Subway shop where Nicholas worked. Investigators did not disclose a motive but ruled out murder-suicide. The shooting comes 10 months after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine on April 20 and then committed suicide. Ex-lndy driver Bettenhausen killed in crash LEESBURG, Ky. A small plane plunged into a muddy farm field Monday, killing former Indy car driver Tony Bettenhausen the youngest son in a famous racing family, and three other people.

Mr. Bettenhausen's wife, Shirley, and two others also were killed when the twin-engine plane crashed at about 1 1:45 a.m. about 30 miles north of Lexington, said Brad Stevens, an executive with Bettenhausen Racing in Indianapolis. The plane had taken off from Tri-City Airport in Blountville, en route to Indianapolis. The crash remains under investigation.

Governor pushes plan to move stars, bars COLUMBIA, S.C Gov. Jim Hodges introduced his plan Monday for moving the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome, saying it should be placed at a Confederate monument on the Capitol's grounds. "It is clear that an overwhelming majority of South Carolinians want to bring closure to this issue," he said. The South Carolina Council of Conservative Citizens called the Democratic governor a liar, saying he had said he would stay neutral on the issue. Only the Legislature can remove the flag.

Lawyers: Elian is entitled to asylum hearing MIAMI Lawyers for the U.S. relatives of Elian Gonzalez argued Monday that the Immigration and Naturalization Service cannot send the 6-year-old boy back to Cuba without first having an asylum hearing. They asked a federal judge to deny. the government's request that thejr lawsuit be dismissed. The INS ruled last month only Juan Miguel the boy's father, has the right to speak for him in immigration matters.

ii By RIC FELD, The Associated Press SORTING: Sheila Anglin, foreground, tries to salvage belongings from the rubble of their Camilla, home after a tornado destroyed it Monday. nurses to find their children. Hospital administrators in T-shirts and blue jeans tended to IVORY COAST Memorial service honors plane crash victims ABIDJAN Friends and relatives tossed red roses into the sea Monday in a tearful tribute to the 169 people who died when a Kenya Airways jet smashed into the Atlantic Ocean. The mourners traveled to the crash site, about two miles offshore, in a privately owned ship. There was a brief interfaith ceremony.

With 49 people still missing from the Jan. 30 crash, Kenya Airways has ended a search for bodies. fr1 7r yrr t'h (J RACE RIOT: Black detainees are 1921 race riot in Tulsa, Okla. causing her to lurch back, and when he grabbed her arm to keep her falling, she screamed. Xt -I A If MEXICO Strike-scarred university reopens amid protests MEXICO CITY Ten months after a strike closed Latin America's largest university, tens of thousands of students returned to classes Monday.

About 2,500 strike supporters marched through the campus to express their opposition to the reopening of the school, and about 100 clashed with anti-strike students outside the National Autonomous University. Students shouted and hurled debris at one another. ECUADOR President pushes plan to replace currency QUITO New President Gustavo Noboa asked Congress on Monday to make the U.S. dollar Ecuador's official currency a key issue in the uprising that forced the previous president from office last month. The measure was included in a legislative package that also calls for the sale of state-run telecommunications and electric companies, an effort to raise dollar reserves.

The government needs to increase the dollars it owns to be able to carry out a plan to gradually replace the Sucre with the U.S. greenback. bloodiest acts of racial violence telling their stories. Their accounts are part of a preliminary report submitted last week to the Legislature by a state commission assigned to investigate the riot. The panel recommended the survivors and their descendants be paid restitution for the riot, which left as many as 300 blacks dead.

Mr. Monroe lost nearly everything in the riot, a memory the 83-year-old man relives by closing his eyes and stretching out his wrinkled hand. "It isn't the money. It's just the idea," he said. "Let me feel like it never happened." silence begins to crumble around 1921 race riot Wall of By KELLY KURT The Associated Press TULSA, Okla.

The 5-year-old boy hiding under the bed saw only the intruder's shoes as they stomped across the room and stepped on the youngster's little fingers. George Monroe's sister stifled his scream with the palm of her hand as-white men set fire to the curtains of the black family's home. It was Monroe's first lesson on keeping quiet about the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Kinney Booker learned, too. He told his children very little about the "zinging and zang- wii I The details of that day have emerged from decades of silence in fragments, like long-hidden photographs from a box: A black survivor recalls fleeing into the countryside as homes burned and bullets flew; a white man remembers seeing black stacked like cordwood; a black man describes seeing his grandfather shot.

The violence broke out after a black shoeshine man was accused by whites of attacking a white woman working as an elevator operator. What happened is unclear', but some said the man may have accidentally stepped on the woman's foot, BEYOND THE HEADLINES CONFRONTING RACISM ing" of bullets on the roof of the loft where he hid, or about the car, the piano and the house that disappeared in the fires set by a white "I was silent for 60-some years," he said. "I didn't want to instill in them the hatred that I had." The smoke of charred homes and bodies over Tulsa's black business district cleared 79 years ago, but only now are survivors of one of the nation's the Associated Press shown following the June 1, The first shots rang out around 10:30 p.m. on May 31, 1921, when a white lynch mob.