The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 1

Tuesday evening FEBRUARY 9. 1999 STOCKS 0 Dow down 158.08 TWENTY-FIVE CENTS NtWSSTAND PRICE roar ckminafe 7 Till ll JTi I A I I. Ufll it i3t" A II fill lr-i ii ii uun 'Saving Private Ryan earns 1 1 nominations B-i ji JOE MONTANA, SWIMSUIT MODEL sMs (BMP vr mm i 1 if ii rn 8P0HTS ILLUSTRATED VIA AP Joe Montana and his wife, Jennifer, are among the celebrity athletes and their loved ones posing in Sports II-lustrated's swimsuit edition. C-l Private deliberations expected to end in acquittal of Clinton by week's end By Larry Margasak ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON After listening quietly for weeks to testimony and arguments, a trial-weary Senate closed the doors of its chamber Tuesday and began to debate for only the second time in history whether to remove a president from office. Senators predicted President Clinton would be acquitted by week's end.

"I hope that we won't just have speeches, that in fact we will have deliberations," said Majority Leader Trent Lott after senators rejected a request that the final debate be opened to the public. The Senate voted 59-41 in favor of opening the deliberations, eight votes short of the required two-thirds majority. Afterward, discussion among senators stalled them from immediately shutting the doors, turning Kathleen Flores, left, and Rosalind Guillory, behind sign, protest the execution ofJaturun Siripongs, above, at San Quentin Prison early Tuesday. Pastor regrets lesbian gaffe Migden, Kuehl angered by prayers By Robert Salladay EXAMINER CAPITOL BUREAU EXAMMER I MARK CONST ANTM Pope's plea can't halt San Quentin execution off the chamber cameras and beginning deliberations. Senators then voted 53-47 to enter into the debate.

A simple majority was need to pass that motion. California's Sens. Dianne Fein-stein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, voted in favor of opening debate. They voted against the second motion. With the first presidential impeachment trial since 1868 on course to end this week, senators were given 15 minutes each to debate whether to convict Clinton for perjury or obstruction of justice in See IMPEACH, A-14 Eerie echoes rattle state death chamber By Larry D.

Hatfield OF THE EXAMINER STAFF SACRAMENTO A Sacramento minister said he would deliver a letter of apology Tuesday to the Legislature's two openly gay lawmakers after a religious meeting in the Assembly chamber included prayers being said over the two lawmakers' desks. Assemblywomen Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, and Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, said they were outraged that a conservative Christian group allowed at least one of its members to drape a prayer shawl over their desks and pray for them during a ceremony Friday in the chamber. "It made me feel like someone had scrawled 'fag on my desk," said Kuehl. "It felt like a violation to have any action targeted toward us. It's an honor to have a seat in the chamber, and I really felt like this was a violation.

They knew See PRAYER, A-13 Michael Dougan was one of 15 media witnesses to the execution of Jaturun Siripongs. Justice Department plans to investigate Kenneth Starr A-14 morse for the killings and admitted he was there in the holdup of a Garden Grove market, but he maintained until the end that an accomplice did the actual killings. Siripongs was pronounced dead 22 minutes after the curtain was drawn between witnesses and the execution chamber. A prison doctor administered a deadly chemical cocktail of sodium pentothal to put him to sleep, pancuronium bromide to stop his breathing and potassium chloride to stop his heart. He was the fourth killer in California to die by lethal injection.

The two other executions since capital punishment was resumed by the state were done by lethal gas. Outside the prison, some 300 death penalty foes protested the See SIRIPONGS, A-12 Hoping last-minute appeals by the pope and in the courts would save his life, but believing in his own reincarnation if they didn't, Jaturun Siripongs was put to death by the people of California early Tuesday. The 43-year-old native of Thailand was the sixth killer executed at San Quentin in just under seven years; 351 other convicts have been put to death in other states in the same period. Siripongs, who once studied to be a Buddhist monk, was convicted of the brutal 1981 murders of two Orange County shopkeepers. Witnesses described him as almost motionless with his eyes closed as he died by lethal injection at 12:19 a.m.

in San Quentin's death chamber. Siripongs had expressed re Witnesses silent, but storm's fury shakes San Quentin By Michael Dougan OF THE EXAMINER STAFF SAN QUENTIN Jaturun "Jay" Siripongs died in his sleep of unnatural causes as friends and enemies looked on, his passing as pacific as the life he led for 15 years on San Quentin's death row. Siripongs, 43, took his last gulp of air in the prison's octagonal execution chamber Tuesday morning. A lethal cocktail of chemicals, including curare, began flowing into his veins at 12:04 a.m. He was pronounced dead by an anonymous attending physician 15 minutes later.

On hand were his sister and his two defense attorneys Linda Schilling and Michael Laurence who had fought ferociously to save the life of the client they embraced as a friend, and whose innocence they proclaimed until the end. Also present in the first row was Vitoon Harusadangkul, 31-year- See EYEWITNESS, A-12 Low-cost insurance a well-kept secret Thousands who qualify have been slow to sign on By Robert Salladay Heckling, fistfights erupt among protesters at San Quentin A-12 Homeless problem spreads to the avenues Bay Area gets chance to dry out EXAMINER CAPITOL BUREAU INSIDE Merger aims to link home shopping, Net USA Networks and Web portal Lycos in intricate deal creating new e-commerce company. Lycos shares plummet. D-l By Gregory Lewis OF THE EXAMINER STAFF Three or four times a week when Alf Bunzel opens Mr. Sewing Center, a business he's owned for nearly 31 years on Geary Boulevard, he must clean up after the homeless people who sleep in his doorway.

"I come into work and there's urine, puke here, a mess. I have to clean it all up day after day after day," Bunzel said. "Snot on the windows. I've had to step over them to get into the shop. We have to use hot water, ammonia, soapy water to get it cleaned up.

"We used to wash (the windows) once a month. Now, we have to do them three or four times a month." Thousands without power, but clear weather ahead By Eric Brazil and Larry D. Hatfield OF THE EXAMINER STAFF A powerful Pacific storm that drenched the Bay Area and piled snow on the Sierra Nevada subsided into showers, snow flurries and an occasional peek of sunshine at midday Tuesday. Several Bay Area schools were closed, thousands of cup tomers lost power, and the main trans-Sierra highways were still obstacle courses for drivers. But the National Weather Service predicted dry weather through Friday.

The storm brought 5 inches of rain to the high country of northern Sonoma County and an average of 2 to 2Vi inches throughout Rob Morse A-2 Movies 6 OMtuarlet A-15 Scoreboard C-6 Sports C-l Stocks D-7 Style B-l Television B-8 Weather A-15 Bridge B-2 Butlneu D-l ClMtffiwI C-8 Comics B-9 Crossword B-7 Editorials A-16 Horoscope B-2 Ann Under B-7 Lottery A 4 mm SJfh'K I ZZZ 1 1 til -tTu: ii. in. SACRAMENTO Hundreds of thousands of California children and their parents remain without health insurance, despite two virtually free programs that give coverage to the state's poorest residents. After seven months of operation, only about 70,000 of an estimated 325,000 qualified children have been enrolled in Healthy Families, a low-cost health insurance program supported mostly by a new federal tobacco tax and state coffers. Meanwhile, a nationwide study released Tuesday shows almost half of California's working poor parents lack insurance because the state, like most others, isn't expanding coverage under the Clin- See INSURED, A-13 State's booming economy leaves rich richer, poor poorer A -3 .1 Having trouble getting your Examinerf Call (800) 281-EXAM-, EXAMINER CRAIG LEE At 24th and Alabama streets, Kathryn Johnson cleans out her car, bashed by a tree during the overnight storm.

Friend Pat Griffin is at right the Bay Area. sory were canceled as skies cleared Flood warnings for the Russian, and the threat of sustained heavy Napa and Petaluma rivers and an rain subsided, urban and smalj stream flood advi- Se WEATHER, A-12 ssos'ooiw The Richmond District, which borders the north side of Golden 5 See HOMELESS, A-9 134th Year, No. 208.