The Bangor Daily News from Bangor, Maine • 1

MaineDay: Old Town teacher named bestBI Inside the News Weather Clouds moving in Chance of a shower high near 60s Tonight and Thursday cloudy patchy fog and areas of drizzle See B2 A-Section Orthodox Jews issue Netanyahu ultimatum Israeli leaddr agrees to back legislation to block recognition of Reform and Conservative movements See A6 Reno team gets new deadline Investigation expanded By Glenn Kessler Newsday WASHINGTON Attorney General Janet Reno who Wednesday morning faces a grilling from Republicans on Capitol Hill over her handling of the campaign finance investigations Tuesday moved one step closer to appointing an independent prosecutor to examine President white House turns over more fund-raising phone videotapes See Page A2 CailS i I i Reno expanded th'e probe of calls from an initial 30-day inquiry to a preliminary investigation the second part of the rigid legal process governing the independent counsel statute Reno told a special panel of the US Appeals Court that her task force had not had enough time to determine whether there was specific credible evidence that Clinton may have committed a See Reno A2 Col 3 WLBZ anchors Vince Bevacqua and Kimberly Brown check their script before the evening newscast Tuesday (NEWS Photos by Bob DeLong) Sports Defense is pivotal for UMaine hockey team Gannett buys Channels 2 6 The play of the defensemen led by junior David Cullen may determine success See C4 Business Economic report card improved for Maine The state of Maine received a from a national group mainly because of job growth See A4 Assisted suicide barrier lifted Court clears path for Oregon law By Richard Carelli The Associated Press WASHINGTON The Supreme Court rekindled the emotional ethical debate over assisted suicide Tuesday by clearing the way for a groundbreaking Oregon law that lets terminally ill people get a help in killing themselves The action came just a day before Oregon voters were to be mailed ballots asking whether they want to repeal the assisted-suicide measure Although the highest order was not a decision and sets no national precedent it removed the last legal hurdle to implementing the assisted-suicide measure The justices ruled in June that terminally ill Americans have no constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide But those decisions upholding bans on assisted suicide in New York and Washington See Assisted Suicide A2 Col 1 Style Local celebrity Eddie Driscoll who worked for WLBZ for decades poses with one of his props Mason Mutt Sale expected to be completed by early 1998 By Susan Carney Of the NEWS Staff BANGOR The Maine Broadcasting System has entered into an agreement with media powerhouse Gannett Co Inc to sell its NBC affiliate television stations WLBZ (Channel 2) in Bangor and WCSH (Channel 6) in Portland Terms of the sale which is expected to be completed in early 1998 pending approval by the Federal Communications Commission were not disclosed in an announcement Tuesday The sale will end nearly 75 years of family ownership of the broadcast outlets said Frederic Thompson president and chairman of the board of the Maine Broadcasting System Thompson is a relative of Henry Rines who started the first radio station WCSH in 1925 then expanded the business to include radio and television stations in Bangor and Portland including WLBZ radio in 1944 WCSH-TV in 1953 and Bangor independent television station WTWO in 1956 which became NBC affiliate WLBZ Thompson said the move is necessary to ensure the future competitiveness and profitability in the rapidly changing broadcast environment made the decision as a family in response to scary terms like and said Thompson not afraid of those but as a small operation it will be harder and harder to go out in the future without a bigger company to provide The family considered several buyers during a six-month search according to Thompson but found a in the Arlington Va -based Gannett (Gannett is unrelated to Guy Gannett Communications a Portland- Wicked easy ways to make candy Jan Campbell master baker and cake decorator provides sweet advice for candy makers See Cl Lew Colby chief executive officer of the Maine Broadcasting System said Gannett understood the relationship between each station and its community and the between the stations themselves understand who we said Colby they are sympathetic to the unique position we feel we have in this market in electronic Colby said that unique position is the byproduct of ownership by who are from Maine and who have been in Maine since they went into business and so understand At the same time he said the stations together create a statewide news operation that diminish the dynamic of either local operation know of a similar relationship between co-owned stations in the he said took a special company to understand that and how it works in their That synergy between WLBZ and WCSH was in fact a large part of the appeal to Gannett according to Cecil Walker president and chief executive officer of Gannett Broadcasting a unit of Gannett Co Inc property is Walker See Stations A 10 Col 2 based media company whose properties include WGME-TV in Portland and the Portland Newspapers) are true broadcasters in the truest said Thompson citing commitment to public service made the decision as a family in response to scary terms like high-definition Frederic Thompson MBS president and board chairman and to news and the as key attributes Thompson also noted that Gannett has been in the radio and television business for more than 50 years so the family was confident Gannett was not looking to buy the stations only to turn right around and sell them again Funds questioned in compact battle Referendum supporters allege violations By Orna Izakson Of the News Staff AUGUSTA Jonathan effort Tuesday afternoon to present a united environmental community opposing the Compact for Forests was derailed by a pro-compact group that claimed organization violated state rules about reporting campaign contributions Matthew Manahan a Portland attorney representing a group of individuals and organizations supporting the forest management reforms going to voters next month as Question 1 alleged that Vote No on 1 campaign did not disclose a $150000 donation in its campaign contribution report to the state earlier this month Manahan presented his allegations to reporters as they waited for press confer-See Carter A10 Col 4 Index Amusements C2 Bridge Cl 4 Business A4-6 Classified Ads C9-1316 Crossword Puzzle C14 Comics Cl 4-1 5 Dear Abby Cl 4 Dr Paul Donohue Cl 5 Editorial A8-9 Horoscope Cl 5 Lottery A2 MaineDay B1-8 MaineStyle Cl -3 New England B6 Obituaries B6-7 address may affect final care Sports Spotlight The Standpipe TV Schedule Weather C4-8 A3 B3 C3 B2 Pilfered pumpkins pile up Bar Harbor police recovering numerous stolen gourds By Lauran Neergaard The Associated Press of 229 days in Newark NJ Which rate is better? The atlas compiled by renowned Dartmouth Medical School epidemiologist Dr Study finds geographic disparities John Wennberg cannot say But it does conclude that the availability of hospital beds plays a big role issue of what care is right is a fundamental said Dr Jonathan Lord of the Ameri can Hospital Association which published the 300-page study is destiny Where you live basically determines how going to Wennberg who first uncovered regional variations in medicine in the 1980s mapped the distribution of health care resources in 1994-95 the latest data available and how people in 306 hospital regions" used them The study to be released Wednesday confirms earlier surgical disparities that for example patients in some states get heart bypass surgery or mastec-See Dying A2 Col 1 By Catherine Ivey Of the NEWS Staff BAR HARBOR More than two dozen pumpkins are sitting inside the police station here and not because officers are getting ready to carve devilish grins on the Halloween favorites On Monday following a tip from a resident police found 29 small medium and large pumpkins under several trees at a local cemetery The pumpkins were stored there they believe by thieves taking part in an annual among groups of teen-agers to see who can successfully steal and stash the most pumpkins found is that some people collect as many as they can for the Halloween night said Police Chief Nate Young the years collected many many pumpkins this The stolen goods are later smashed said Young Pumpkins are often stolen from porch stoops during this time of year but patches of dirt on some See Pumpkins A2 Col 5 WASHINGTON The dying in St Petersburg Fla can expect to spend almost five days longer in intensive care than old folks in Sun City Ariz says a study that concludes where Americans live helps determine how they spend their last days The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care also found large geographic disparities in the number of days Medicare patients spent in the hospital during the last six months of life from a low of 44 days in Ogden Utah to a high 1997 Bangor Publishing Co Periodicals postage paid at Bangor Maine 04401 Publication number USPS 041000.