Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois • Page 1

BLUES CURE BACK AGAIN v. iKSBP? Dwight Gooden gets his first win in a month as the New York Mets beat the Cubs for their fourth consecutive victory. A i broom Locally Holding back student progress Will holding your child back in school eventually help them finish their education? A Decatur School District study challenges this traditional belief. StoryA3 State Law discourages checkups The American Medical Association says physicians are afraid to try to stop their greedy peers. The Cure has replaced its slate-gray rock exterior with a many-colored coat of musical optimism and other emotions on its latest album.

A bit of typical Cure-style irony. RAPPING BOYCOTT Columnist Mike Royko says a Chicago police boycott of Time Warner products and properties over the lyrics of rapper Ice-T's 'Cop Killer' will be useless, despite the columnist's disregard for the Warner Bros. Records release and other rap songs. 0ptntonA10 Cardinals avoid a three-game sweep by beating the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-1. Deta2sB1 0: Hi AP AP GO eu CO THE RAKES CAME Chicago's Tim Raines singles home the winning run in the ninth to beat Cleveland.

Deta3sB4 DESERTED: A Senate committee Wednesday discussed reports that the government concealed information on 133 POWs left in Vietnam. KatkxiA12 NEW MAGIC: Shaquille O'Neal, left, was the top pick in the NBA draft Wednesday. The former Louisiana State University star met the press with Commissioner David Stern. StoryB1 1 DTODAY: Clouds and sun, stray T-storm. High of 82.

1 flTrtWIftUT. DirtK Ann Landers B6 Comics B8 Lottery A2 Movies B6 Obituaries A6 Puzzles Bl 1,12.18 Television B9 Our 120th Year Issue 177 Two sections mm iviiiviiii. i amy cloudy. Low of 58. TOMORROW: 7856.

Details A2 1M 1992 Decatur, Illinois Thursday, June 25, 1992 50 cents Home delivery: 31 cents tulia ififi it DO A Train makes last Mattoon stop By JEFFREY RAYMOND Mattoon Bureau Chief Businesses wait for freight and passengers change travel plans. By BOB COOK Associated Press Writer Illinois businesses crossed their fingers Wednesday and hoped freight shipments suspended by a nationwide rail strike would resume before they sustained serious losses, while passengers stranded by the shutdown scrambled to get home. Only the Chicago-to-Milwaukee Amtrak line provided passenger service in Illinois, and freight shipments sat still at CSX's largest interchange station, Barr Yard in Riverdale, a south suburb of Chicago. The nation's freight trains stopped rolling and Amtrak halted most passenger, service Wednesday after the International Association of Machinists union went on strike early Wednesday morning against CSX Transportation, one of the largest of the nation's 40 freight railroads. The strike came less than two hours after other unions had agreed to extend contract talks for 48 hours.

The Machinists strike against the CSX rail system put about 800 Decatur-area railroaders out of work Wednesday. Norfolk Southern employs about 700 workers in Decatur. Illinois Central, the other major line through the city, has about STRIKE Continued on A4 ning. Lee Speakman, a railroad carman based in Mattoon, said his union settled its contract Tuesday night and he came to work Wednesday. But with Amtrak trains honoring the pickets, Speakman had nothing to do.

"I'll go home and start painting on the house," he said. The doors were locked tight on the building at Mat-toon's Illinois Central rail yard. Freight trains are also shut down because of the strike. Approximately 40 passengers a day pass through the Mattoon station, Ticket Agent Dick Jahraus said. The only people at the station by mid-morning Wednesday were local sightseers taking an opportunity to see the station and the tracks up close.

Jahraus said he'd finish his shift, then close the station and go home to wait for any developments. MATTOON The train they call the City of New Orleans made just one of its usual four stops in Mattoon Wednesday. The machinists' strike against the CSX railroad shut down virtually all Amtrak passenger trains as well. The only ones still running were the Chicago-Milwaukee train and the Washington, D.C.-Boston route. A train that left New Orleans Tuesday afternoon bound for Chicago passed through Mattoon at 6 a.m.

Wednesday, since the union allowed trains already en route before Wednesday's strike to complete their runs. But that was the last train until the strike is resolved. The northbound City of New Orleans normally makes a morning stop in Effingham, Mattoon and Champaign-Urbana. It also makes an evening stop in each city, as well as two southbound stops each eve If COIIR E3 ars i fj File photo Heaton: 'The right thing' Man convicted of 1 6-year-old 's scissor slaying By JIM GETZ Taylofville Bureau Chief VANDALIA The tension in the Fayette County Courthouse was as thick as the crowd awaiting the jury's verdict Wednesday on Stuart Heaton. The spectators, numbering at least 100, didn't have to wait long.

It took only 90 minutes for the jury to find the Bluff City man guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in last summer's stabbing death of 16-year-old Krystal Lynn Naab of rural Ramsey. "It was the right thing for them to do," Naab's father, Verle Naab of Greenville, said just after jurors left the courthouse. "I feel like the state's attorney and the law officers all did a good job." "It was based on the evidence presented to us," jury foreman Allan Alderson of Ramsey said by phone late Wednesday afternoon. "That's all I'd like to say." Circuit Judge Joseph Fribley immediately ordered Heaton held without bond. Heaton, 25, faces a prison term of at least 20 years at his sentencing July 31.

Fayette County State's Attorney Don Sheafor said he may ask for a jury to consider the death penalty. Heaton was smart after he stabbed Krystal 80 times with a pair of scissors in the early aftern-noon July 23, Sheafor told the jury in closing statements Wednesday. Using rags to clean up the bloody mess he made of the Naab family's mobile home and grabbing a change of clothes from his pickup truck, Heaton left virtually no trace of his presence no fingerprints, none of his own blood, no hairs, no clothing fibers, Sheafor said. But he wasn't smart enough. Too many people saw his pickup parked outside the trailer for four hours, he said.

When picked up by authorities that night, Heaton had scissor cuts on his hands identical to those on Naab's body. And, in the most condemning evidence, Heaton left his unique "DNA fingerprint" his semen on Naab's body. Defense attorney William Fair, however, called the DNA evidence inconclusive and told jurors that two witnesses claim to have seen Heaton in Vandalia at 12:30 p.m. July 23. Telling them to picture the I scales of justice, Farr said, "In proof beyond a reasonable doubt, one side of those scales must clank down hard.

It's not there. You don't have the evidence." Related story A4 1 I aiM trrmi I a.iv:''-Tr smoke screens Rules cigarette firms can't deceive WASHINGTON (AP) Cigarette makers may be sued under state laws for allegedly deceiving the public about the dangers of smoking, the Supreme Court said Wednesday. The ruling, however, may make it difficult for smokers to win such cases. By a 7-2 vote, the justices said federal laws requiring warning labels on cigarette packages do not shield the companies from all suits based on state personal-injury laws. A lawyer for the family of the late Rose Cipollone of Little Ferry, N.J., predicted a flood of lawsuits against manufacturers.

Industry spokesmen said the decision's effect will be minimal. While the court rejected the companies' bid for protection against all suits, the justices adopted standards that still may limit smokers' success in taking their allegations to court. The companies' "duty not to deceive" is not preempted by federal law, Justice John Paul Stevens said in the court's main opinion. But, he said, smokers will have to do more than prove that cigarette advertising and promotions "tend to minimize the health hazards associated with smoking." A successful claim for damages could be based on allegations that cigarette ads are fraudulent, that the companies concealed the dangers of smoking from state regulators or that the firms conspired to mislead the public. Ultimately, those who sue may have to convince juries that smokers were not primarily at fault.

Graduation prayers not heard by court justices WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court, splitting 5-4, strengthened its 30-year ban on officially sponsored worship in public schools Wednesday, prohibiting prayers at graduation ceremonies. The court rejected a Bush administration invitation to discard the way it has interpreted for two decades the Constitution's ban on "an establishment of religion' Bush said he Was "very disappointed" by the ruling. He said, "I believe that the court has unnecessarily cast away the venerable and proper American tradition of non-sectarian prayer at public celebrations." Bush administration lawyers had urged the court to use the graduation-prayers dispute from Rhode Island to adopt a constitutional view more accommodating to religion. But Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote, "The Constitution forbids the state to exact religious conformity from a student as the price of attending her own high school graduation." Kennedy emphasized that the ruling was limited to elementary and secondary schools.

It would not necessarily affect, officially sponsored prayers at a public university or at a city council meeting. 1 1 "'H 1 Tf it i i 5s AP The space shuttle Columbia sits poised for its launch later today off its Cape Canaveral, pad. Poor weather could delay the beginning of what is to be the longest U.S.. space flight in 18 years. Meteorologists said there was only a 40 percent chance of acceptable conditions for a 11:07 p.m.

liftoff because of rain and possible thunderstorms. For the second time in a day, technicians had to replace a navigation unit in Columbia's crew cabin. Two of the three units were replaced overnight after failing tests, and one of the replacements also failed. feMii iimm-mzm) EHtap filigMl.