Times-Advocate from Escondido, California • 3

A3 timesadvocate THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1993 KlsoSDiras wwrfdlwiiflD Plane crashes in Minnesota killing ail aboard Video game labeling proposed Cl VIOLENCE: Senator Joe Lieberman, and Captain Kangaroo say parents should be warned saw was a plane dropping off the scope, Edelstein said. Austin said the plane apparently was on its approach to the airport. The plane was found upside down, broken in three pieces and resting on a bank of dirt, firefighters said. The surrounding area was covered with as much as two feet of snow and initially was reachable only on foot or by snowmobile. The weather at the time of the crash was foggy with freezing drizzle, but it was not immediately known whether those conditions contributed to the crash.

Austin said the plane, Flight 5719 from Minneapolis to Hibbing, was a Northwest Airlink commuter plane operated by Express Airlines II, Inc. Hibbing is in the heart of the Iron Range, an area in northeastern Minnesota where taco-nite used in steel making is produced. Mine dumps, usually extending hundreds of feet into the air, are where man-made piles of waste ore are stored. TRAGEDY: 18 people die as plane crashes 200 miles north ofMinneapolis The Associated Press HIBBING, Minn. A Northwest Airlink commuter plane crashed Wednesday night in foggy, rainy weather near downtown Hibbing, killing all 18 people aboard, authorities said.

The plane, a twin-engine turboprop, crashed into a huge mound of iron-ore waste in a park east of Hibbing, about 200 miles north ofMinneapolis, police said. There were no survivors among the 16 passengers and two crew members, said Mort Edelstein, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. Airline spokesman Jon Austin confirmed a total of 18 dead. Edelstein said the plane was two to three miles from the airport at an altitude of 7,500 feet when it disappeared from radar. The last thing the controller Missionary beaten during L.

A. riots dies Quilt marks Bay Area observance JAMES 0. CLIFFORD Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO World AIDS Day opened Wednesday in San Francisco with the unfolding of a memorial quilt and a warning to schoolchildren from a young adult who tested positive for the HIV virus. You have a right to say NO, said the letter from 25-year-old Sean Sasser, who found out he was infected with the virus which causes AIDS when he was 18. You have a right to say not without a condom! You are the only one who is going to protect you from HIV and AIDS.

The letter was read aloud at a news conference at the headquarters of the San Francisco Unified School District, one of several events held in the Bay area to mark the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome epidemic. Flags flew at half-mast in Oakland. Volunteers at the San Francisco Food Bank prepared food baskets for HIV positive people. And several churches rang their bells 13 times to represent the 13 years of the epidemic, said Bob Nelson of the AIDS National Interfaith Network. In Berkeley, 250 people attended a rally at a post office, where a new AIDS-awareness postage stamp went on sale.

John Iversen of East Bay ACT-UP said the event was aimed at supporting congressional efforts to set up a massive push for a cure. The World Health Organization estimates 13 million people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. Epidemic recognized by millions LAURA KING Associated Press Australians dimmed lights on landmark buildings today, Princess Diana had a ticket to an AIDS fund-raising rock concert in London, and nurses in Thailand sold yellow roses. Even in China, where the usual official line is to ignore AIDS as a foreign problem, the health ministry called a meeting of medical specialists to mark World AIDS Day. Governments called for better education and prevention, and individuals mourned loved ones lost to AIDS.

The World Health Organization estimates 13 million people worldwide are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS. It says that figure may triple within seven years. Dianas support for AIDS causes underlined the high profile that AIDS has long had in Western countries. In much of Asia, where many experts fear the epidemic could reach explosive proportions, cultural taboos have hampered open discussion. But that is beginning to change.

Nurses sold roses in Bangkok, where a flourishing sex trade has helped spread the virus, to publicize the risks. Chinas Vice Minister of Health, Yin Dakui, was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as telling the medical meeting, It is very important for Chinese to raise their awareness of AIDS. It was more than a platitude. According to a survey in Yunnan province, one-third of government workers, doctors and police did not know Los Angeles Daily News DEBORAH RAMIREZ Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel The object of the hottest video game in town, the one legions of children want for Christmas, is to score a fatality. When this happens, the cartoon characters on the video screen chop off the heads of opponents.

Others bite them to pieces. The game is called Mortal Kombat. And critics, such as U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, say parents should be warned.

Lieberman proposed a bill on Wednesday that would give the video game industry one year to cpme up with a warning label system. If it did not comply, a five-member council appointed by the president would impose its own tougher rules. The movement to label video games comes less than a month before Christmas, as parents begin filling shopping carts with holiday gifts for the children. Could the warnings help to curb juvenile violence? Yes, say Lieberman and Bob Keeshan, better known as Captain Kangaroo. In Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, the senator and the former television kiddie show host watched excerpts from Mortal Kombat and Night Trap, another video game that shows three men chasing a young woman and trying to suck the blood from her neck.

As television sometimes teaches young children that violence is an appropriate solution to problem-solving in real life, violence-based video games carry that lesson a step further, Keeshan said. Violence is the option that makes points and wins the game the video game or the game of life. A rating system for video games sparked mixed reviews in toy stores and arcades. Some said the labels will help parents shield young children from violence and sex. Others said teen-agers will play these games regardless of what parents tell them.

Some youngsters didnt understand what all the fuss was about. How many parents do you see here? asked Brian Klein, 16, of Hollywood, as he and his friends played Mortal Kombat at the Grand Prix Race-O-Rama arcade in Dania, Fla. You see more violence if you watch TV at night, he said. As far as 13-year-old Rubiel PierrePaul of Boynton Beach, is concerned, video violence does not affect him or others his age. Its cool.

Theres nothing wrong with it, he said of Mortal Kombat, in which players rip out their opponents hearts or incinerate their skeletons. But PierrePaul agreed the game might be too vicious for young children, such as 8- or 9-year-olds. The violence in some video games offends Nora Monte-leone, of Hollywood, Fla. But she said she cant stop Joseph, her 16-year-old son, from playing them. Monteleone thinks Joseph is old enough to understand that this is only a game.

Even though he attends a school for emotionally disturbed children, she doesnt think the make-believe violence is hurting him. Its too gross for me, but he loves it, said Monteleone, who accompanied her son to Grand Prix. Joseph was not in school because he had been suspended for a discipline problem, she said. Representatives from Sega, one of the largest makers of video games, said the industry should regulate itself. Sega said that 40 percent of its software users are more than 18 years old.

The adult market today wants something more than just playing Pac-Man, said Bill White, Sega vice president of marketing. Nintendo, the other video game giant, could not be reached for comment despite several telephone calls on Wednesday. AFTERMATH: Death toll rises to 54 after man who preached peace after the Rodney King verdicts dies PAUL HEFNER and DAWN WEBBER Los Angeles Daily News LOS ANGELES A Christian missionary savagely beaten while preaching repentance to looters during the Los Angeles riots has died after languishing in a coma for more than a year and a half, officials said. Wallace Tope 54, slipped into a coma after being attacked April 30, 1992, on a Hollywood street corner where he went to try to dissuade looters with a simple message of peace and faith, his brother said Wednesday. Nobody else had the moxie to do it.

He did. If my brother doesnt make it to heaven, nobody will, Dennis Tope said. He led an apostolic life. Like Paul. Like Peter.

Tope, died Nov. 24 at a Pasadena, convalescent hospital, raising the death toll to 54 from the three days of unrest that erupted after the acquittal of four police officers in the beating of Rodney King. Prosecutors said they will wait for a formal report from the coroners office before deciding whether to bring murder charges against Fidel Ortiz and Leonard Sosa. Ortiz and Sosa already have pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges in the attack on Tope. Under the law, murder charges may be filed up to three years and a day after an incident that ultimately results in a victims Princess Diana waves to the crowd during the Concert of Hope to mark World AIDS Day on Wednesday in London.

whether the AIDS virus could be transmitted by shaking hands or having a meal with a HTV-positive person. In the Philippines, where the government has clashed with the Roman Catholic hierarchy over AIDS prevention and family planning, thousands of people flocked to Manilas financial district. Health Secretary Juan Fla-vier appeared wearing a red T-shirt emblazoned with Red Alert, Stop Aids. Characters costumed as a condom and a skeleton capered in the crowd, and air force helicopters dropped red confetti. In Japan, which has also tended to label AIDS a foreign problem, celebrities including a popular woman pro wrestler handed out information to commuters in train stations.

Hong Kong, a British colony, began offering HIV tests in 1985. Even so, prevention efforts have been frustrated by a reluctance, especially among older people, to discuss sex. Wallace Tope, an electrical engineer who became a missionary, died Nov. 24 from injuries received during the April 1992 LA. riots.

death, prosecutors said. We will have to be able to determine exactly what is the cause of death and whether it could be attributed to the beating, said Deputy District Attorney David Augh. The fact that Tope spent more than a year in a coma does com-' plicate that process, he said. Clearly, the beating is a but for cause of the death, Augh said. The question is whether or not thats sufficient legal causation for murder.

The primary issue is probably going to be the defendants state of mind. If prosecutors pursue a homicide case, it could be under a theory of second-degree murder, arguing that the defendants intent to hurt Tope ripened into a desire to kill during the four-minute beating, Augh said. AIDS: White House launches education programs Navy Secretary: Women to serve on combat ships federal employees in dealing with co-workers infected with the HIV virus. And Attorney General Janet Reno pledged a widening enforcement campaign to prosecute health workers who refuse to treat AIDS victims. Some AIDS activists protested the administration was still doing far too little, and a few accused Clinton of outright betrayal of their cause.

Clinton is a wus, snapped playwright Larry Kramer, an AIDS activist in New York, who complained that research and treatment are stymied by the bureaucracy. But Clinton said his administration had boosted funding for AIDS research by 20 percent and the Ryan White Health Care Act by 66 percent at a time when more than 350 items in the federal budget are smaller than last year. While the government should continue to search for a cure, Clinton said, the best thing we can do for people who are living with HIV and living with AIDS is to pass a comprehensive health care plan so that people do not lose their benefits when they contract the disease. Reno pointed out at another AIDS-related event that her department is prosecuting two dentists for refusing to treat people infected with HIV. We are determined to strip away ignorance and prej udice by education if we can, by litigation if we must.

Continued, from A1 to press ahead with his programs for research and prevention, but in his speech afterward he was lamenting that many people are losing their passion about the disease. At that moment, the unidentified heckler demanded: If youre so concerned about AIDS, wheres the Manhattan Project on AIDS that you promised during your and my community are dying in ever-increasing numbers, and all you do is talk. Members of the audience shouted for the man to sit down, and security guards finally escorted him out of the hall. Among the administration officials who marked World AIDS Day yesterday were Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala and Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, who visited a homeless shelter, where they served breakfast to men infected with the HIV virus. Post offices began selling stamps depicting the red ribbon of AIDS awareness, memorial quilts adorned the Old Executive Office Building, and the White House switched off its floodlights, shrouding the executive mansion in darkness for 15 minutes last night.

Meanwhile, the departments of Energy, Education and Labor announced plans to educate MILITARY: John Dalton says plans call for up to 500 women to put to sea in 1994 SUSANNE M. SCHAFER Associated Press WASHINGTON The Navy plans to put hundreds of female sailors on aircraft carriers in 1994 in the first major deployment of women on combat vessels, Navy Secretary John Dalton said Wednesday. Dalton, in an interview with defense writers, said plans call for putting 400 to 500 women on several of the huge warships over the coming year. Legislation lifting the ban on women serving aboard combat vessels was signed Tuesday by President Clinton. Dalton said efforts are being made in the post-Tailhook era to help sailors adjust to the influx of women.

We have been in the process of over a long period of time working through this issue and dealing with it in an effective and professional way and well continue that, into the future as women go aboard combat vessels, Dalton said. He noted that it was the Navy that proposed opening combat jobs to women. Despite the poor image that has plagued the Navy since the Tailhook sex harassment scandal, Dalton pledged the transition will be accomplished smoothly. In 94, youll see women serving aboard aircraft carriers. The plan is to have 400 to 500 women aboard three aircraft caniers by the end of 94, he said.

We will benefit from the experience that weve already had about how to implement that, and learning from the lessons of the past in terms of what weve already done..