Lancaster Eagle-Gazette from Lancaster, Ohio • 1

LANCASTER EAGiE-GAZEITE Target, bmuds special City, county credit ratings good will greet guests and sign autographs at the store. With Sunday's grand opening of the Lancaster store, Minneapolis-based Target Stores will operate 645 stores in 32 states, a Target news release said. Regular hours at the Lancaster location will be 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Sunday. For a related story, see page B5.

Store opens on July 23 By C.J. CROSS The Eagle-Gazette Staff The Lancaster Target store will announce its grand opening next weekend with a boom fireworks will light up the sky above the 1300 Warehouse, opens to the public at 8 a.m. next Sunday. Carolyn Brookter, Target media relations representative, said a variety of special attractions is planned for the first day of business. The first 500 guests age 1 8 and older to enter the store Sunday will receive a Target Grand Opening canvas tote bag containing free samples and coupons.

Entertainment begins at 10 a.m. when the University of Minnesota Raptor Center conducts educational bird demonstrations with a bald ea River Valley Blvd. location. The fireworks display is scheduled to start at 9:30 p.m. Saturday and last for 15 to 20 minutes.

Target's fireworks display is one of two planned in Lancaster that night. A Lancaster Festival display will follow the Dudley Moore The Lancaster Festival Orchestra performance at Ohio University-Lancaster. That display is expected to begin between 10:30 and 10:45 p.m.. Festival organizers said. The Target store, located beside Family Toy gle, great horned owl and a kestrel, a small European falcon.

The university is "world renowned for its research facilities, educational programs and medical treatment for injured birds of prey," a Target news release said. The program continues until 12:30 p.m. As the bird demonstrations' come to an end, two celebrities join the festivities. From 12:30 to 2 p.m., James Kiberd, who plays detective Trevor Dillon on ABC-TV's "All My Children," and a "real-life Barbie" Grilling for charity Heat continues to sear as it moves east across U.S. si-' V'-7 1 -v.

4 RACE HELPERS (from left) Lori Householder, Barbara Simon, Jan O'Neal and Jennifer Banker' help runners beat sweltering temperatures in Saturday's Spaghetti Shop Winner's Track. Heat indexes for Ohio were expected to reach as high as 130 Saturday. For more information on the fun run, see, page Bl. (E-G photo by Dick Prochaska) The Associated Press Air shimmering in desertlike sunshine turned the East into a convection oven Saturday in the heat wave already blamed for train wrecks, at least 29 deaths and millions of dollars in farm losses. People sought relief however they could.

"We're playing Christmas songs, like 'Winter to help beat the heat," said trumpeter David Gordon of the Bruce Edwards Quartet, playing jazz in the midday sun in New York City's midtown Duffy Square. "It's sonic air conditioning," said guitarist Mark Hagan. A breath of slightly cooler air floated across the upper Midwest and into the Northeast, but touched off lines of severe thunderstorms from the Plains through New England. Thousands lost power in Massachusetts and Connecticut. A tree killed a camper in upstate New York and lightning may have killed a Massachusetts woman.

A midday thunderstorm dropped the temperature at Milwaukee from 89, with humidity making it' feel like 109, down to 78, but the humidity stayed above 60 percent. Farther west, the relief was more distinct with Saturday's readings in the 70s in western Nebraska. Ahead of the easing temperatures, however, heat records started falling before noon. Newark, N.J., hit 99 at 1 1:50 a.m., erasing the 1983 record of 98, then kept going up to 101. Mansfield, Ohio, hit a record 96; residents of the Buckeye State were told the heat index, a for release of money are rarely turned down.

Should the board that oversees billions in state expenditures be a fierce watchdog, or is it just one of many valves along the pipeline of government spending? "It should be a watchdog," said Sen. Alan Zaleski, D-Vermillion, who joined the board in January. "It 1 Michelle Hale and Dave Hill grill bratwurst and ribs Saturday at Festival Foods, 1215 N. Memorial Drive, to help raise money for Lancaster-Fairfield Charity Newsies. Charity Newsies and Festival Foods co- sponsored the concessions.

Half the proceeds went to Charity Newsies. (E-G photo by Dick Prochaska) By DENISE DICK The Eagle-Gazette Staff Though neither entity has received a formal bond rating in the last several years, Lancaster aiul Riirfiek! County are in good standing for borrowing money if the need arises. 'We were looked at about a year ago when we were thinking about borrowing money for (Lancaster) City Hall improvements'," Lancaster City Councilman and finance committee member Ken Culver said. The last time the city was rated it received an A rating. Moody's, Standard Poor and Fitch are the three main agencies that rate public entities, organizations and corporations.

A triple A is the best rating, followed by double triple and on down the line. "Triple A and double A are fairly exclusive ratings," Culver said. "You very rarely get a rating higher than A for a medium to smaller city." (See CREDITA2.) INSIDE In weather Partly cloudy, hot and hu- today. Highs will be in 'the mid-90s. See page A2.

In sports Legion teams gear up Pickerington Post 283 and Lancaster Post 11 are gear- king up for 8th District tour nament play, which starts Monday. See page Bl. In other news Wrong impression At first, Physicist Edward Teller wasn't impressed as he watched the explosion of the first atomic bomb test in White Sands, N.M. See page A6. Act II under way Act II of the O.J.

Simpson double murder trial has key players still at center stage. See page A3 Also inside today Active Years. Arts Leisure Business Classified Education. Lottery Obituaries Opinion C8 C7 B5 D1-D10 C6 A2 A5 A4 it J. Controlling Board rarely turns down money requests A.

J1 mm i' Columbia, the prenoon reading was 94, with a discomfort rating or heat index of 1 1 7. That wasn't enough to keep President Clinton from venturing out in shorts, baseball cap and T-shiit for a late morning jog through downtown and along the Potomac River, and heading to the golf course later in the day. New York City hit 100 by early afternoon in Central Park, where trees and grass offer some relief from the blistering, heat-reflecting urban canyons of concrete, brick and asphalt. cal parties. "I am amazed at the vast amount of money hundreds of millions of dollars that are approved without question," Zaleski said.

"There is a lack of sense that we are dealing with real money, that these are taxpayers' dollars." (See C0NTR0LLINGA2.) B-2 bomber not cloaked against rain WASHINGTON (AP) The $42 billion B-2 stealth bomber loses its stealthiness in the rain, and its radars are unable to distinguish, a thundercloud from a mountain, according to a draft report by the General Accounting Office. Rain distorts the skin of the ground-hugging aircraft, causing it to lose much of its ability to evade enemy radar, according to The New York Times. The newspaper obtained a copy of the draft report prepared by Congress' investigative agency. A Capitol Hill defense analyst who saw the document said GAO determined testing of the B-2 by its manufacturer, Northrup-Grumman, is months behind schedule. But Larry Hamilton, a Northitip Grumman spokesman, said Saturday the document is only a draft.

A GAO official refused to speak about the draft report. Us jr. Wis? spending Within minutes, about three-quarters of the petitioners are dismissed, their requests approved by the State Controlling Board. The others will remain to answer the sometimes mundane but sometimes pointed questions about where the taxpayers' money would be going. In the end, requests PaineWebber Inc.

He mentioned possible leaks to preferred customers before the figures' are made public. The Commerce Department takes extraordinary steps to assure against premature disclosure. On the morning when the report is to be released, financial news reporters are locked in a room for a half-hour until the official announcement time. Sung Won Sohn of Norwest a Minneapolis bank holding company, is one economist who thinks the government is making a serious mistake by relinquishing control, "Something needs to be done to the cunent index. It doesn't lead or indicate much," he said.

"But I'm concerned that turning it over to the private sector will damage its credibility." Officials insist they can protect the integrity of the index when it is awarded to a private firm. combination of temperature and humidity, could get as high as 130. It was the hottest day of the summer in West Virginia, with temperatures in the 90s and humidity that made it feel like 1 13 at Wheeling. The Green Hills Country Club at Ravenswood, W.Va., forced golfers to ride carts instead of walking the course. "We've had a few drop out after nine holes because of the heat," said club pro Joe Maria.

The Washington Monument was shut down for a third day because the interior temperature rose into the 90s. Outside in the District of shouldn't be a rubber stamp, but we are, all too often. "We spend like it's play money." State officials face tough questioning from Zaleski, who peers over the top of his spectacles like a principal staring down a naughty student. He is one of six voting members of the board all of them legislators appointed by politi- '1 yJE COLUMBUS (AP) Every other Monday, hundreds of millions of dollars change hands in one small room in Columbus at least figuratively. That is when hundreds of state employees pile into the North Hearing Room of the Ohio Senate chambers, awaiting judgment on what can mount to $500 million in Finishing touches Government's economic gauge going private 'Ate.

if WASHINGTON (AP) The government's main economic forecasting gauge, often maligned but closely watched on Wall Street, is about to go private. The Commerce Department is looking for a private company to take over its Index of Leading Economic Indicators and two companion barometers and publish the results each month. The Clinton administration says this latest foray into privatization will save money and free some federal numbers-crunchers to pursue the more important task of refining other statistics. Even private economists who applaud the idea warn there is a danger in having a profit-making company dispense a set of numbers with potential to move financial markets. "You're the manufacturer ofa number the market is going to trade on.

It docs raise some suspicions," said economist Maury Harris of Tim Barnhart-Sullivan measures a piece of window trim on a Habitat for Humanity house on East Mulberry Street Saturday. The house under construction for four months is expected to be completed by the end of July. A family of six, Including one handicapped child, will move in in August. More than 200 volunteers have contributed 1,500 service hours to the project. (E-G photo by Dick Prochaska).