Daily Press from Newport News, Virginia • Page 24

I immmmmmmB Dow: Up 51.57 'VOOOj MM DaUjg JJress :00 yf' 1 6858.1 1 1 I I if 12196 1197 2197 i I 500: 789.59 4.16 AMC is 'buildin Nikkei Average: holiday I Financial Times 100: 4304.4 $341.30 I Gold: (N.Y.Merc) Silver (N.Y.Merc) $4.8250 $22.42 Crude oil: (Mar.) I U.S. dollar (N.Y.) 123.15 0.37 6.70 1 30-yr T-bond yield By the numbers: Size: 89,290. Screens: 24. Seats: 5,098, with 46-inch row spacing. Concessions: 3 stands.

Tickets: 3 box offices. 14 selling stations. Other features: Retractable cupholder armrests. Stadium-style tiered AMC said the megaplex will be one of its newest prototypes. The 5,098 seats, which AMC calls "loveseat-style," will be plush, with high backs, double-wide cushions and retractable cupholder armrests so couples can snuggle when the lights go down.

The rows will be "stadium-style," each built 18 inches above the preceding one so movie-goers can see over the people in front of them. Individual auditoriums in AMC megaplexes range between 125 seats and 400 seats. Word of the project leaked out last May, and since then Ellis-Gibson has been busy securing land for the shopping center, but AMC had not confirmed its involvement until now. "We expect it to affect the whole movie-going market," Stuffle said. He said AMC megaplexes in Please see AMCB9 part of the shopping center that Virginia Beach-based Ellis-Gibson Development Group is clearing land for at Big Bethel Road, Hampton Roads Center Parkway and Interstate 64.

Plans for the center also call for a grocery store and other shops. The theater should be under construction in the next four to five weeks, according to Sonny Stuffle, marketing director for AMC's Northeast division. Company confirms megaplex plans By Philana Patterson Daily Press HAMPTON AMC confirmed Tuesday that it's the company building the 24-screen theater that will anchor the proposed Hampton Town Centre. The megaplex, scheduled to open by early November, will be STOCKS RISE. A late burst of bargain hunting boosted blue-chip shares lifting some stock averages to new highs, but the rocky session produced a less decisive finish for the broad market.

The Nasdaq market was weighed down again by profit-taking among technology issues. 1 1-LINE Wall Street report 928-1111 2301 I Investment scam draws prison term York woman gets 21 months By Beverly N. Williams Daily Press Under federal sentencing guidelines, Stanley could have received a 10- to 16-month prison sentence, but the obstructing justice charge upped it to 15 to 21 months. "She made misrepresentations to her victims and she did the same to the court today," the judge said. "Some of her testimony has been hard to follow, and I think some of it here today is false.

That's obstruction of justice, i- "I don't know what you can say to make me believe it's not false," Morgan told Stanley's lawyer, William Ferguson III of Newport News. .1 As the sentence was imposed, Stanley stood stoicly beside her attorney. Her husband, Billy Stanley, cried softly. Several of Stanley's victims, who filled one row of the courtroom, said they were pleased with the sentence and happy to have gotten justice. "On the surface this didn't look like a big deal," said Deloris Morgan, a Newport News real estate agent.

"But it went deep. The hurt. The betrayal. The ramifications of being betrayed by someone you thought was your friend." Morgan and Stanley had been friends for five years. But their friendship fell apart after Stanley cajoled Morgan's daughter to invest $5,000 she had inherited from her father in a mutual fund.

Please see ScamB9 NORFOLK Sharon Stanley tried to rationalize Tuesday why she cheated her friends out of thousands of dollars by persuading them to let her invest their money. But U.S. District Judge Henry Morgan didn't buy Stanley's claims and sentenced her to 21 months in prison for the investment scam. He also ordered her to pay $18,277 back to two of her victims and placed her on three years' supervised probation after her release from prison. Stanley, 54, pleaded guilty in August to ripping off her friends and several acquaintances.

She was convicted in U.S. District Court of one count of mail fraud and of devising a phony investment scheme to steal money. During Tuesday's sentencing hearing, the York County home-maker claimed that she was a victim, too. She said the mastermind behind the scam was a retired Northern Virginia banking official who had testified at her trial that he did not know her. Morgan said he imposed the stiff prison term because Stanley was obstructing justice by continuing to lie about her role in the scam.

Stanley's attempt to use a bogus letter at her trial to substantiate her claims also factored into his decision, he said. COAL EXPORTS UP. The amount of Appalachian coal exported through Hampton Roads the nation's largest coal port increased for the third straight year in 1996. The region's three coal terminals loaded 53 million tons of coal, a 3.5 percent advance from 1995, -according to the Hampton Roads Maritime Association. About 44.1 million tons were shipped overseas; the rest we'nt to domestic utilities and steel "plants, largely in New England.

Coal 'shipments are still well below the record 65 million tons in 1991, but coal remains single-largest commodity. MIXED ECONOMIC BAG. Services: The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's latest survey of business conditions found that service-sector indicators rose in January, in contrast with he sharp declines typically reported dur- ing ihe month. However, indicators of retail activity in the Fifth District, which includes Virginia, were off from Decem-, ber'r with the indexes for sales revenues, wages and employment all falling. Manufacturing: Indicators of manu-.

acturing growtii were mixed in January, according to the Richmond Fed's survey Respondents indicated that, compared with December, finished goods arrS xaw materials prices increased slightly. The shipments index fell, but the new orders index rose. AEROSPACE CONFERENCE. Aero-Mat'97 will be held May 12-15 at the Williamsburg Marriott. About 500 people are expected to attend.

The conference will focus on keeping aerospace materials systems affordable, organizers say. BIZ BITES Middleburg-based Independent Community Bankshares will buy Tredegar Trust Co. of Richmond. Terms of the deal, which will combine $233 million in assets, were not released. Avatar Solutions a software design company in Vienna, has opened a plant in Melbourne, Australia.

The plant will support Avatar's partner Hitachi Data Systems and their clients in Australian and Asian-Pacific markets. IsoQuest Inc. of Fairfax has teamed up "with Imagination Software Inc. of Silver Spring, to offer an automatic data extraction service. The service allows customers to find computer documents and images more easily.

0 O-' WVT AOL adding members despite network clog The Associated Press NEW YORK America Online Inc. continues to routinely sign up new subscribers fueling allegations the online service is aggravating network bottlenecks it vowed to unclog. The company defends the practice, saying it has capped membership at about 8 million and uses new signups to offset cancellations. Although he declined to provide specific numbers, AOL Chief Executive Steve 1 HBMS David Duran loads a postal sorting machine in anticipation of the Valentine's Day rush at a post office in Merrifield, Va. AP Postal machines learn to read some of your handwriting The long haul Projected long-term interest rates, 1997 Mexico By Deb Riechmann The Associated Press well as make it easier to drop the service.

Last week, a judge in Seattle temporarily barred America Online from signing up new customers in Washington state until it upgrades its system. The restraining order, spurred by a class-action lawsuit against AOL, was overturned Monday by another judge. "By continuing to take in other customers' money, they are exacerbating the damage they are doing to their current customers," said Seattle lawyer Steve Berman, whose case is among about 20 class-action suits facing AOL around the nation. While AOL told states' attorneys general it would stop soliciting new customers this month by suspending its advertising campaign, it did not agree to refrain from signing up anyone who inquires. Meanwhile, many people say they continue to receive company promotions in the mail.

Case said the AOL diskettes arriving in peoples' homes this month were just leftovers from a marketing blitz the company has suspended. Pi I'll Case said Tuesday that more people have been canceling since the recent troubles escalated. But some critics wonder why America 1 Sim It Sweden af It I'm JSES i It I'm Canada Lm MOB pf CASE The reader's memory is somewhere inside a blue box of computer circuit boards In an out-of-the-way, gray room at the Postal Service's Engineering and Development Center in suburban Virginia. "Here it is," program manager Al Lawson says, showing off the read-your-writing machine. "It's not very exciting.

It's a box." About $6 million has already been spent to get the Remote Control Reader up and running in the 34 cities. By the end of the year, the software will be at all 254 of the post office's main processing sites, sorting nearly one-quarter of the estimated 8 billion pieces of handwritten mail that move through the Postal Service every year, Lawson said. Please see PostalB9 MERRIFIELD, Va. Amid the cutesy hearts and lipstick prints, there's a flowery address on that Valentine card that a mail-sorting machine would love to read. Yes, computers are being taught to read handwritten mail.

Even the hard-to-sort stuff of Valentine's Day. Already in 34 cities, the computer software will help read handwritten addresses penned on many of the 30 million valentines expected to be mailed this year. The Remote Computer Reader likes numbers written in third-grade, block style. But the computer finds it easier to read cursive as long as it's not too showy. And no Old English, thank you.

Online doesn't take the extra step to ease demand on its network, which has been swamped with customers who paid $19.95 a month for unlimited online time but frequently get nothing but busy signals. Under pressure from attorneys general from around the country, AOL agreed Germany Japan Vttf SOURCE: Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development; research by PAT CARH KRT two weeks ago to give frustrated customers refunds and credits as customers refunds and credits as Please see AOLB9 Please see 1 Mo time like the present to prepare for a bear market David Komansky, the new Street firms are normally cheer- i Yr-flSi' 1 inS to Komansky reminded me run, the market is going chairman of Merrill Lynch leaders. After all, their brokers I WiWl( that a fire drill is long overdue. down, perhaps very shi is a smart, blunt, and investment bankers win busi- James Glassman driU? es' take some tmie me lessons of 19S oniroainn follnn; mhn riiH cnmo noes hv hfinff ontimists nnt rws. ZZ nut nnw tn think nhnnr hnw vrai of stock-market histntv engaging fellow who did some ness by being optimists, not pes out now to think about how you run, the market is going down, pernaps very These are the lessons of 195 ot stock-market history.

to go sharply. years A DISITBl cnr Get stock quotes and market reports online. On America Online: Keyword "Hampton Roads" On the World Wide Web: http.Vhamptonroads.digitalcity.com unconventional things during a From Isle of Wight, Smithfield: 357-6594 fe-J 928-1111 If you can concentrate on the long run and pay no attention to the short, then you will enjoy a profitable relationship with stocks and accumulate a large nest egg. But in the investing game, myopia Please see GlassmanB9 Glassman is former editor of Roll Call and former publisher of Atlantic Monthly. would react to a quick collapse, a la Oct.

19, 1987, when the Dow dropped 23 percent in one day, or a slow, grinding bear market, a la 1973 and 1974, when the market fell 37 percent in two years. About the market, two occurrences are almost totally certain: 1) over the long run, stocks will return an average of 10 percent annually, and 2) oyer the short simists. When I got back to the office, I dug up a report from Richard T. McCabe, Merrill's chief market analyst. Here's what he said: "New attempts to extend the underlying (but likely maturing) major uptrend could develop by spring before a full-fledged cyclical decline (25 percent peak to trough risk) seems likely to devel-op." I Ignore the mumbo jumbo and focus on that last parenthetical element: "25 percent peak to trough." The peak of the Dow Jones industrial average was 6,884 on Jan.

21. If the trough is 25 percent below that, the Dow will drop 1,721 points. Ouch! Now, I don't have the slightest idea whether the market will fall that much that soon, but talk- I Financial steakhouse lunch last week like smoking cigarettes, drinking a Bloody Mary and speaking frankly about things that were on his mind. One of those things was that the stock market might tall, oh, say, 20 percent this year. I rarely pay attention to market forecasts, but this was a shocker.

Executives of big Wall category 2111 I Business headlines I The industries report category 2000 category 2901 'To add a stock or mutual fund llotinn- f-'.