The Modesto Bee from Modesto, California • 15

Wednesday November 27 1996 B-31 THE STATE Strings to Taiwan grant raise UC eyebrows cles detailed concerns from unnamed China experts about the political fallout Some also worried that the $15 million could be in jeopardy UC Berkeley officials insist that the $3 million gift and the $15 million in promised funds are separate CD Mote UC official in charge of fundraising said the only reason the foundation was used was as a tax convenience Yeh said her current core budget is about $200000 a year The $3 million would mean that we have never been able to do in the past such as faculty travel graduate student travel graduate Wong was acting on his own Yeh said naming something for a political figure is always a sensitive issue that this particular case given the complex dimensions in Chiang career becomes a matter of even greater difficulty for all of Faculty over it We talked left and right up and she said Eventually the faculty decided to go ahead with a draft proposal for the money with the proposed name of Chiang Ching-kuo Center for Chinese Humanistic Research That passed by a vote Yeh said was unanimous I call it enthusiastic" Problems arose when newspaper arti By Michelle Locke The Associated Press BERKELEY A Taiwan offer of $3 million for a center for Chi nese studies is stirring controversy at the University of California At issue is the politically ticklish condition that the recipients name the center after the late Chiang Ching-kuo son of former Taiwan leader Chiang Kai-shek Few are willing to speak publicly But privately expressed concerns led to a meeting Monday night at which faculty struggled with whether the money is worth the potential political baggage only thing that was clear was that we were going to meet again" said Wen-hsin Yeh director of the Center for Chinese Studies at UC Berkeley The controversy comes at a time when Taiwan regarded as a renegade province by China has taken an increasing role in funding research about China conducted in the United States The $3 million is offered by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange At least four universities were invited to apply UC Berkeley officials learned of the competition for the $3 million after using the foundation as a conduit for $15 million in already-promised funds from UC Taiwanese alumni That money is to go to an East Asian studies library Chiang Ching-kuo who died in 1988 is known as the man who lifted martial law in Taiwan But he also is associated with the authoritarian regime of his father Chiang name hit headlines in the Bay Area in the mid-1980s when Taiwan-born writer Henry Liu was shot to death at his Daly City home after writing a critical biography of Chiang Two Taiwan gang members later were convicted of murdering Liu on the orders of Taiwan's former military intelligence chief Vice Adm Wong Hsi-ling The Taiwan government maintained A calm Simpson finishes questions IN BRIEF His attorneys wait to begin their case By Linda Deutsch The Associated Press SANTA MONICA Bringing to a close the most dramatic stage yet in the civil case OJ Simpson stepped down from the witness stand Tuesday without any effort by his lawyer to undo the damage from two days of accusations by the other side Defense attorney Robert Baker had been expected to throw Simpson a round of sympathetic questions But in a surprise move criticized by some experts Baker said he will call Simpson to the stand during the defense portion of the wrongful-death lawsuit next month As a result jurors headed home for a six-day Thanksgiving holiday carrying a final image of Simpson denying yet again that he stabbed to death Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman The trial resumes Tuesday Earlier in the day a juror was removed after being accused of trying to contact attorneys in the case and one of their employees The woman an aspiring actress said her only offense was to compliment a tie Telling his story for the first time in front of a jury Simpson was battered for two days with evidence insinuations and accusations from blood in his Bronco and mansion to a lie-detector defense attorney Gerry Spence said want to have your client tell his story as many times as possible assuming he has a story to tell and can tell it effectively He has certainly shown he can tell it But Loyola University Law School Dean Laurie Levenson called it a smart move on part way when they put OJ on the she said will be well-packaged be surrounded by defense witnesses who will have done much of the explaining for Asked about the risky strategy Baker said: pundit thinks they can read the minds of the jury Ann-Marie Jamison was the fourth ju-or or alternate to be dismissed One was removed for drinking one for dozing in court and one because of ill health The alternate juror chosen by lottery to replace Jamison is white and in her 20s leaving the racial and gender makeup of the jury unchanged: nine whites one black one Hispanic and one person of black and Asian ancestry It has seven women and five men Five alternates remain The judge warned the remaining jurors jury is not a social He suggested that sequestering the jury would be one way to deal with the problem I think appropriate in a civil The jury in the murder case was sequestered nearly a year The Associated Press Simpson arrives at courthouse for civil court session explain anything from the location of any gloves he owned to how he got cuts on his hand crescent-shaped gouges the plaintiffs say Nicole Simpson and Goldman made with their fingernails during a death struggle decision to postpone in front of the jury came as a surprise think a bad Wyoming test that allegedly showed him being Despite rapid-fire questioning from a lawyer who was literally in his face Simpson answered in calm even tones giving no flash of the explosive temper the other side had hoped to bring out He answered with a series of and a string of denials Among other things Simpson said he Nobody told ousted juror be ple T-shirt with a bright orange message: Halloween! Care to Go Bump In The Monday Jamison giggled putting her hand over her mouth when attorney Daniel Petrocelli read into the record deposition comment that the incriminating Bruno Magli shoes were But the final straw was a comment about Steve Foster a technician for the plaintiffs who handles the machine that projects huge pictures of everything from close-ups of the shoe soles to gruesome autopsy photos said that the tie was hot that it was a good-looking Brock said ever told her she could not comment on a tie nobody told her she be human for five hours a By Scott Reckard The Associated Press SANTA MONICA Only in LA: Ann-Marie Jamison an instant celebrity for getting kicked off the OJ Simpson civil jury Tuesday already had a talent agent to line up her TV appearances Jamison 25 a 5-foot-7 brown-eyed brunette was a jewelry saleswoman until a month before the trial when a department store buyout cost her that job and freed up her time for the long trial But like so many people around here also an aspiring actress A member of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists Jamison boasts of talents ranging from flute player to aerobics instructor to can-can dancer The middle of her resume lists San Jose-area theatrical productions of (she played Ado Annie) and (Lola) Right on top it proclaims her role as a on the CBS-TV series not the normal 70-year-old unemployed blue-collar said her agent Phil Brock of Studio Talent Group who spent the morning trying to line up appearances for her on the network morning TV shows Jamison raised eyebrows in the courtroom from the start A few days into the trial she asked if the lawyers could all introduce themselves because she was having trouble telling who was representing whom The judge Hiroshi Fujisaki rebuffed and scolded her when she asked if she could bring candy for the other jurors on Halloween On Halloween Day she marched into the jury box wearing a pur Quake insurance set SACRAMENTO Enough insurance companies have agreed to participate in the earthquake insurance authority to allow the authority to begin selling quake insurance policies state officials said Tuesday Richard Wiebe a spokesman for Insurance Commissioner Charles Quackenbush said insurers representing 716 percent of the residential property insurance market had agreed to take part in the California Earthquake Authority and that policies will be available Monday Force-feeding ordered SANTA ANA A judge has ordered jailers to force feed an inmate on hunger strike finding society has a right to see him brought to trial The inmate lost 22 pounds during a 12-day hunger strike Superior Court Judge David Carter made his ruling Monday in a case that could result in a death penalty sentence He said 34-year-old Jonathan may fall into a coma and interrupt his trial Supervisors cleared SANTA ANA A state appeals court Tuesday dismissed the case against two Orange County supervisors who were accused of misconduct that led to the biggest municipal bankruptcy The 4th District Court of Appeal voted unanimously that the law protecting the separation of powers applies to Supervisors William Steiner and Roger Stanton who were charged under a rarely used civil misconduct statute that is prosecuted like a crime Probation revoked LOS ANGELES -A judge formally revoked rap executive Marion probation on Tuesday ruling that he was an in a Sept 7 at a Las Vegas hotel Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephen ruling could imperil the future of Death Row Records the top rap label Knight now faces up to nine years in state prison charged LOS ANGELES Police have arrested a teen-age couple for investigation of desecrating Verdugo Hills Cemetery crypts including propping up a corpse and placing a cigarette in its mouth The two are from Tujunga The girl and boy both 14 are members of the a teen occult group that dresses in black and wears white facial makeup police said C-130 pieces found McKINLEYVILLE US Coast Guard crews continued recovering wreckage from a downed HC-130 Hercules aircraft Tuesday while Air Force Reserve officials said the only survivor should leave the hospital shortly The big prize a 40-foot section of wing eluded Coast Guard crews said Lt Craig Breitung but the boats searching the waters 55 miles off Cape Mendocino had picked up some pieces he said The rest lies in 5100 feet of water Marine convicted CAMP PENDLETON A Marine was found guilty Tuesday by a military jury of premeditated murder for shooting an officer to death and seriously wounding another who tried to intervene The jury at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base will determine next week if Sgt Jessie A Quintanilla should be sentenced to death Ann-Marie Jamison Airport parking lots gear up for holiday What happened to Lash? Widow claims ashes of B-movie star were lost by mortuaiy been a widow three times all three By Jeff Wilson were cremated Suspicious after the quick cremation foul-up however the widow sure the ashes Forest Lawn attempted to give her are really those of her husband asked to talk to the man who cremated him and (the mortician) said they fired him I ran out and threw up and went home This sounded phony to said the widow striking a feisty tone She has since refused to accept an urn that Forest Lawn says contains the ashes do I know him? They say its him but 1 take their word for said LaRue returning to a melancholy demeanor tell me where my husband is" she said friends are calling and wondering about the services I go out for the holidays or anything until I know where he is a nervous want to know what happened to the body Maybe they sold the body or put him a group grave You hear all sorts of things like that these Jardini countered: no basis for that worry We assure her they are LaRue filed a Superior Court lawsuit in Glendale Aug 30 claiming the body of her husband was lost and the cremated remains may have been comingled with others A status conference is set for March allegations have no basis The remains have been properly cared Jardini said adding the attorneys for Marion LaRue made a sizable settlement The amount disclosed by Jardini or the lawyer Rafi A Ourfalian Knight-Ridder Newspapers SAN FRANCISCO San Francisco International Airport is gearing up for what could be the busiest day in the history as more than 100000 passengers swarm into SFO Wednesday on their way home for Thanksgiving The day before the holiday is traditionally the busiest travel day of the year and Bay Area airport officials say they expect to be turning crowds away from parking lots long before the day is through Both San Francisco and Oakland predict all airport lots will be filled by midday And with daily passenger totals expected to be 30 percent greater than normal San Jose International is predicting a repeat of last year when both the short-term and long-term lots filled up Airport officials are warning travelers to expect delays and to get to the airport any way but by private car At SFO which now serves 66 percent of all Bay Area air passengers 63000 cars are expected Wednesday and there is long-term parking for only 4300 said airport spokesman Ron Wilson very disturbing to drive to the lot and see a Wilson said people have even abandoned their to The Associated Press LOS ANGELES Six months after his death the remains of B-movie cowboy A1 La-Rue have yet to reach a final resting place His widow walked into a funeral parlor three days after heart failure killed the bullwhipcracking star of low-budget 1940s westerns She wanted to view her body and fulfill a deathbed promise said get a lock of hair and put it in a locket That way he will always be with Marion Callahan LaRue said Tuesday But the corpse there mortician told me I have very bad news The body is gone It seems to us that somebody cremated him ahead of said LaRue her voice cracking with emotion as she recalled the May 24 revelation She had missed the chance to see him one last time to get that tuff of hair Lawn did the cremation too early It was a said attorney Andy Jardini who represents Forest Lawn Memorial Park Hollywood Hills The widow had wanted a funeral so she could join friends in saying goodbye to LaRue who died May 21 four months after open-heart surgery LaRue after all had lots of friends He was a Hollywood cowboy icon known for his handiwork with a whip and trademark black outfits in such films as of Old (1945) Caravan (1945) of the (1947) and of the (1948) Marion LaRue called Forest Lawn just a few miles from her home to handle the cremation of her husband of four years 1 make their planes when they find a parking place In Oakland electronic signs will notify travelers when the three lots are full and direct them to a 500-space overflow lot at Airport Drive and Air Cargo Road near the United Airlines maintenance hangar where the daily fee is $8 Adding to the chaos concession workers plan to picket at 2 pm Wednesday because of a dispute with CA-1 Services the firm that runs the concession stands be urging holiday travelers not to buy from any of the stands San Francisco International is now the fifth-busiest in the nation and the number of passengers increased 7 per cent last year to more than 38 million Oakland and San Jose each had fewer than 10 million passengers for the same period Oakland airport where the number of passengers has jumped 148 percent since 1988 is planning to build a multilevel parking garage and expand roadways into the airport to cope with the growing demand year going to be quite a said Lynne Joiner spokeswoman for the Port of Oakland which operates the airport while sitting there in bumper to bumper traffic take heart relief is on the.