The Buffalo News from Buffalo, New York • 8

Page A 8 The Buffalo NewsSafurday January 27 2001 rebuffed in attempt to reverse wrongful death award Los Angeles Times LOS zVNGELES A state appeals panel riday denied OJ attempt to re verse the $335 million wrongful death judg ment against him for the 1994 deaths of his ex wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman The 2nd District Court of Appeals found that trial court did not err and the com pensatory and punitive damages are not ex Simpson who was acquitted in 1995 in a Los Angeles criminal trial was found liable for the deaths in a 1997 civil trial in Santa Monica Simpson was ordered to pay $85 million to Sharon Rufo and red Goldman Ronald parents and heirs for compensa tory damages $125 million in punitive dam ages to Ronald estate and an ad ditional $125 million to Nicole Brown Simp estate for punitive damages attorneys had contended that errors were made by a Santa Monica judge in rulings pertaining to evidence and juror misconduct They could not be reached for comment riday Peter Gelblum an attorney for Rufo and Goldman said riday he was pleased by the appeals decision affirms every ruling of the civil Gelblum said not unexpected We feel it was a frivolous appeal and the court con firmed Pluto planet or ice lump? focus of astronomical deviation By KATHERINE ROTH Associated Press NEW YORK One of the na leading science museums has quietly shaken up the universe by suggesting that Pluto is not neces sarily a planet at all but just a lump of ice The startling suggestion comes from scientists at the Rose Center for Earth and Space which opened last year at the American Museum of Natural History in New York There is a huge model of Jupi ter hanging from the ceiling at the center There is Saturn with its rings Mercury Venus Earth Mars Neptune and Uranus But what about Pluto long considered the ninth planet in the solar sys tem? A solar system display says: yond the outer planets is the Kui per Belt of comets a disk of small icy worlds including Pluto" is no scientific insight to be gained by counting says Neil de Grasse Tyson director of the Hayden Planetarium the centerpiece of the Rose Center or nine the numbers Many astronomers say the mu seum the first prominent institu tion to take this position has over stepped its bounds is so far off base with Pluto like in a different says David Levy author of Tombaugh Discoverer of Planet about the Kansas farm boy who first spotted Pluto "The majority of astronomers have said that unless there is definitive evidence to the contrary Pluto stays a major planet" The International Astronomical Union calls Pluto one of nine plan ets in the solar system and a 1999 proposal to list Pluto as both a planet and a member of the Kuiper Belt was abandoned after it drew strong opposition from astrono mers who did not want to diminish status Pluto has always been a little different: Its composition is like a and its elliptical orbit is tilted 17 degrees from the orbits of the other planets When Pluto was discovered in 1930 it was thought to be about the same size as Earth but astron omers have now learned that it is only 1413 miles wide smaller than the Earth's moon Then in 1992 astronomers dis covered the first Kuiper Belt ob ject and since then have found hundreds of chunks of rock and ice beyond Neptune including about 70 that share Pluto similar orbits The Rose Center says there is no universal definition of a planet and instead divides the solar sys tem into the sun and five families of objects There are terrestrial planets or small dense rocky objects like Associated Press Tova Hagler 10 and her brother Yaakov 5 tour an exhibit in the Rose Center for Earth and Space which no longer counts Pluto as a planet EKtaJL Mercury Venus Earth and Mars an asteroid belt consisting of crag gy chunks of rock and iron between Mars and Jupiter the gas giants which are Jupiter Saturn Uranus and Neptune and two reservoirs of comets the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper Belt And Pluto? in the Kuiper Tyson says it made of? It's most ly ice" Tyson says there is a precedent to demoting planets: Ceres only 580 miles wide was called a planet in 1801 and demoted a year later Pluto has been a major planet for more than 70 years critics counter Jane Levenson of the Rose cen ter says visitors sometimes ask about the missing Pluto just explain that there are five types of objects that circle the sun" she says don't make a big deal about Pluto" Voters split on Clinton as presidential candidate By MARC HUMBERT Associated Press ALBANY Almost four in 10 voters nationwide believe New York Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton will run for president in 2004 de spite her protestations to the con trary according to a poll out ri day Voters were evenly split over whether the new senator should someday run for the House The poll from Marist Institute for Public Opinion found President Bush slightly ahead of former Vice President Al Gore and holding larger leads over Sen Clin ton and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt in possible matchups for the 2004 presidential race In the poll 50 percent of voters said they approved of the job Bush is doing as president while 20 per cent said they disapproved ifty three percent of voters said they were confident he could handle the nation's economic and foreign poli cy issues Thirty four percent said they were uneasy about how he would handle the economy and 32 percent felt that way about how he would deal with foreign affairs The poll of 742 registered voters found that 39 percent of them felt the former first lady would run for president in 2004 even after they were informed that she had said she would serve out her six year Senate term ifty percent said they believed she would serve out her term Marist pollster Lee Miringoff said there was a partisan di vide" when it came to feelings about whether the senator would run for president in 2004 or stick to her pledge The Poughkeepsie based pollster said 49 percent of Republicans felt she would run for president in 2004 while just 29 per cent of Democrats felt that way the trust thing" Miringoff said Asked if they felt she should someday run for president 46 per cent of voters said she should and 44 percent said she should not The partisan divide was reversed on that question with 63 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of Re publicans saying she should run ifty nine percent of voters said they felt Clinton would be a good senator for New York while 24 per cent said she would not be are willing to grant her the opportunity to develop into an effective political figure in her own right but the rest of it gets very cloudy in a Miringoff said Told about the poll spokesman Howard Wolfson said has made it clear to New Yorkers that she is going to be serving out her six year term and working hard for the The telephone poll was con ducted Monday and Tuesday and has a margin of error of plus or mi nus 4 percentage points AroundTheState Law group to mull having TV resume courtroom coverage NEW YORK (AP) The state Bar Association will soon consider a proposal to support the resump tion of televised coverage of court room trials the chairman of the panel that examined the issue said riday recognize that the purpose of a trial is to do justice but we also believe that with proper safe guards with care that we can also accomplish the purpose of educat ing the public about what a noble profession this in fact said A Vincent Buzard chairman of the Bar special commit tee on cameras in the courtroom Buzard presented a preliminary report on the merits of returning cameras to courtrooms on riday during a meeting of the state Bar Association in Manhattan The re port will be distributed to mem bers who will then vote on its rec ommendations on March 31 in Al bany" There is currently no legislation pending to return cameras to the courtroom but Buzard predicted that if the Bar Association gives its support later this spring televised coverage of trials could return to the state before the end of the year Stabbing suspect found dead at car crash scene DOVER PLAINS (AP) Min utes after a Dover man allegedly stabbed his wife and a bystander he was killed in a car crash the Dutchess County Sheriffs Office reported Shortly before 8 pm Thursday state police in Dover Plains discov ered a car driven by Harvey Kil mer 36 that had crashed into a telephone pole Kilmer was pro nounced dead at the scene The crash occurred minutes af ter the sheriff office received a re port for domestic assault in Dover Plains 77 miles north of New York City Kilmer allegedly stabbed his es tranged wife along with another person before fleeing the scene Assistant District Attorney Mar jorie Smith said one of the stabbing victims was hospitalized but both are expected to make complete re coveries Old artifacts located on garage building site ALBANY (AP) Archaeolo gists studying the site of a proposed state parking garage have discov ered what they believe are artifacts dating back to the earliest days of European contact in New York As the construction on the lot continues scientists from Hartgen Associates ponder the discovery of a pre Colonial Dutch house a tan nery complex and other brickworks located downtown near the Hud son River The house was probably built outside the original city walls around 1630 by one of the original Dutch Patroons who settled the key trading city of Albany Nine wooden vats used to tan hides date to the 1750s Mayor Jerry Jennings said he will listen to the consultants before deciding whether to temporarily stop construction on the $12 mil lion parking garage to allow for further examination of the arti facts Police officer arrested on sexual assault charges LEVITTOWN (AP) A Nas sau County police officer was sus pended without pay riday after al legedly forcing a woman to perform oral sex on him after a December 1999 traffic stop au thorities said Matthew Murphy 36 who has been six years on the job was ar rested late Thursday night at the Eighth Precinct station house He was charged with ordering a female to follow him to a secluded area where the alleged incident oc curred on Dec 18 1999 Murphy who is married with two children was immediately sus pended without pay Deputy In spector Peter Matuza said The arrest came as police inves tigated a separate complaint that a police officer had forced another woman to perform oral sex in re turn for her freedom last August There were charges earlier this week that the August case had not been properly investigated No arrests have been made in that case Murphy's attorney Paul Gianel li asserted his innocence The arrest comes just weeks af ter an officer from neighboring Suffolk Giunty was suspended for forcing women to strip for him to avoid drunken driving arrests Democrat blasts Clinton over pardon By PETE YOST Associated Press WASHINGTON West Vir ginia's Democratic governor who as a member of Congress looked into the 'activities of fugitive finan cier Marc Rich criticized President Clinton's term ending pardon of Rich as "an awful message" to send to the public is terrible and I totally disagree with the ac tions" Bob Wise said in an inter view riday Wise conducted congressional hearings in 1991 92 into the award to a Rich connected company of $45 million in contracts with the US Mint while Rich was a fugitive living in Switzerland He was want ed on federal tax fraud charges filed in New York grant of clemency to Rich last Saturday if you hang out long enough you might be able to get a presidential par Wise said from Charleston WVa isn't a person that ought to be pardoned and it sends an aw ful the governor con cluded As a House subcommittee chairman nine years ago Wise told a congressional hearing that himself is still on the lam still known as one of the greatest tax evaders in US history and yes still living the good life" While still a congressman Wise was elected West Virginia gover nor in November and took office Jan 15 A former labor lawyer he was first elected to Congress in 1982 as a liberal Democrat and moved to ward the political center during his lengthy congressional tenure Rep Dan Burton Ind chair man of the House Government Reform Committee is looking into whether Clinton an improper for pardoning Rich and business partner Pincus Green in the last few hours of the Clinton presidency Burton said riday night on Blitzer that he plans to investigate the matter fully obtaining if nec Rich's lawyer Mark Quinn in terviewed on the same program said there wouldn't be any need vowing will cooperate fully and promptly with any MOVING SALEtv 1 selling piano BALDWIN can be yours at low moving prices HURRY! 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