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By Staff Reports
Arizona Daily Wildcat
August 21, 1996
WORLD
Chechen refugees flee Russian attack
GROZNY, Russia (AP) - Russian soldiers attacked the main route out of the Chechen capital yesterday as black smoke billowed around civilians fleeing a threatened all-out Russian assault.
The chief Russian military commander in Chechnya, Gen. Konstantin Pulikovsky, had promised the route would be safe until Thursday, when an aerial bombardment of the city would begin. But many of the thousands streaming along the route were caught yesterday in a raging battle.
''They are liars. They are bandits,'' said Irina Sadova, a refugee on the road. ''The Russian army is trying to kill us.''
It remained unclear whether the Kremlin had endorsed a major new offensive, or whether the Russian commander's vow to bomb Grozny into submission signaled an army out of control.
Presidential security chief Alexander Lebed, who criticized the planned assault, questioned whether President Boris Yeltsin had approved the order. Yeltsin's office said he had, but appeared to refer to a different order, one in which Yeltsin talked about negotiating with the rebels.
Yeltsin, who was absent from the Kremlin when the war began 20 months ago, left on what aides described as a pre-vacation trip to a countryside resort. He continues to be dogged by reports of poor health and issued no statements about Chechnya on Tuesday.
Pulikovsky reiterated an ultimatum he gave civilians Monday night: Leave Grozny by Thursday morning or face a devastating aerial attack.
With Russian helicopters papering Grozny with leaflets telling civilians to leave, the flow of refugees turned into a flood. Some carried babies, small children or a few possessions in plastic shopping bags. Others crammed into cars and trucks for what became a harrowing ride.
They got caught in fighting when, despite Pulikovsky's assurances, Russian troops attacked the only major route out of the city, which has been under rebel control since the separatists captured Grozny Aug. 6.
Fighting raged in the forests around the road, which runs southwest to Urus-Martan, with rebels firing mortars at Russian soldiers. The Russians cut the corridor Tuesday afternoon by seizing at least one point on the road, but it was unclear whether they could hold it.
Miss Universe's crown not threatened by supposed weight gain as media reports
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Miss Universe Pageant officials today denied reports that Alicia Machado is in danger of losing her crown because she has gained too much weight.
''I just saw her yesterday, and she looked beautiful,'' pageant spokeswoman Wooten Lee said. The reports ''are completely absurd.''
U.S. and Venezuelan media reported recently that the pageant ordered the 19-year-old beauty to shed 20 pounds in two weeks or lose her title.
Machado was in Las Cruces, N.M., today, preparing to be the featured guest at the Miss USA Teen Pageant, to be broadcast nationwide Wednesday night. She could not immediately be reached for comment.
At 5 feet 7 inches tall, Machado weighed 113 pounds when she won the Miss Universe crown in Las Vegas on May 17. She dropped 18 pounds before the competition.
Media reports said she now weighs 130 pounds, perhaps because of her confessed weakness for chocolate, pasta and corn pancakes.
Lee said she didn't know Machado's current weight because the pageant doesn't make her weigh herself. ''We don't put her on a scale and march her around,'' she said.
Machado's mother, Marta Fajardo, told The Associated Press this morning that Machado had four wisdom teeth removed a couple of weeks ago - an operation that made her face swell and might have given the impression she had gained weight.
''All that about her having a weight problem is a lie,'' Fajardo said in a telephone interview from her home in Maracay, 65 miles southwest of Caracas. ''I sent her a fax Sunday, and she called back and said it's just gossip ... She's a beautiful girl.''
NATIONAL
Isuzu and Acura under fire,Consumer Reports alleges safety violations
YONKERS, N.Y. (AP) - Consumer Reports demanded a recall Tuesday of 1995-96 Isuzu Troopers and 1996 Acura SLXs, charging that the sport-utility vehicles can roll over during quick turns at low speed.
''To consumers who are considering buying one of these models, our advice is: Don't. Not until a satisfactory repair is made,'' said R. David Pittle, Consumer Reports' technical director.
Consumers Union, the nonprofit organization that publishes the magazine, branded the two vehicles ''not acceptable,'' based on its own tests. It was the first time in eight years the group gave a vehicle that rating.
Each of the vehicles tipped up high on two wheels during test runs through a course. The 1996 Trooper tipped substantially at about 33 mph and nearly rolled over, the group said. In the worst case, it tipped at approximately a 45-degree angle.
''The test simulates the challenge a driver faces when avoiding an unexpected obstacle, such as a child running into the road,'' Pittle said.
Isuzu responded by saying the Trooper meets all federal safety standards. The company will examine Consumer Union's test results, spokesman Daniel McCue said.
Acura did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Acura SLX was introduced in 1996 as essentially a Trooper with an Acura nameplate. Both vehicles are made in Japan. Acura is a unit of Honda Motor Co.
Both models are tall - the Trooper is 6 feet high - and relatively narrow compared with other sport-utility vehicles.
About 35,000 of the vehicles have been sold in the United States, and Consumers Union said there have been no reliable accident statistics yet. However, Pittle said the test employed is ''not a stunt maneuver.''
Consumers Union said 46 out of 47 vehicles tested have completed the same test without any tendency to tip. In 1988, the Suzuki Samurai received a not-acceptable rating for tending to roll over on some turns.
Suzuki sued Consumers Union, alleging it mishandled a road test and ignored evidence that the cars were safe. The vehicles are no longer sold in the United States. The lawsuit is pending.
Consumers Union had tested the 1992 Trooper and gave it an acceptable rating. Pittle speculated the company later made some change in the vehicle's suspension that hurt its stability.
Kevorkian performs 36th assisted suicide, the 7th since last acquittal
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) - Dr. Jack Kevorkian helped a Texas woman suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease commit suicide Tuesday, refusing to let controversy over the death of a Massachusetts woman slow his cause.
Kevorkian was alone when he brought the body of Louise Siebens, 76, of McKinney, Texas to Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital at about 10 p.m., said Dr. Bob Aranosian, director of the emergency room.
A former typist and a widow who had been living in a Texas nursing home, Siebens was accompanied to Michigan by her daughter, Ginny, and son-in-law, Jerry Burnett, Kevorkian attorney Geoffrey Fieger told The Oakland Press.
Aranosian said she was pronounced dead at about 10:11 p.m. He said the medical examiner's office was to examine the body early Wednesday.
A message left at the Burnetts' home in the Dallas suburb of DeSoto was not immediately returned.
Pontiac Police Sgt. Terry Morris said detectives were investigating.
Calls to Fieger's home Tuesday night were met with constant busy signals.
The suicide was the 36th Kevorkian has acknowledged aiding since 1990 and the seventh since his most recent acquittal on assisted suicide charges. It came even as Fieger was defending his client's involvement in the suicide by lethal injection last week of a Massachusetts woman whose illness, several doctors said, was not fatal.
Judith Curren, 42, of Pembroke, Mass., died Thursday. Fieger had said she was suffering from a combination of fibromyalgia, a painful muscle disorder, and chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome.
Kevorkian has been prosecuted in five deaths but has never been convicted.
STATE
Girl released from hospital after attack by two dogs
TUCSON (AP) - No one could blame Selina Stevens for preferring cats to dogs.
The 9-year-old was released from University Medical Center Monday, three days after she was mauled by two dogs while walking to the school bus stop.
She had severe bite wounds on her head, face, legs and arms from the attack Friday .
''I don't like dogs no more,'' she said as she left the hospital.
The girl's neighbor, Dana Goodge, helped save the child when she heard her cries. Goodge ran outside and threw herself on top of the girl to shield her from the bites.
Selina underwent more than six hours of surgery and received hundreds of stitches for the 50 wounds on her body.
The dogs, a male rottweiler/shar-pei mix and a female Labrador retriever/German shepherd mix, were picked up and destroyed by the Pima Animal Control Center.
Officials have not located the dogs' owners, who could be cited for violating leash and licensing laws.
Infant girl dies after left unattended in bathtub
TUCSON (AP) - A 10-month-old girl left unattended in a bathtub died early yesterday of her injuries.
Czarina Coss had been on life support since Monday, after her father found her submerged in bath water. Robert Coss was bathing the girl and her older brother, when he left them to check on some soup in the kitchen, the Pima County sheriff's office said.
A nursing supervisor at University Medical Center said the baby died shortly after 1 a.m.
Stay of execution granted for Phoenix death row inmate
PHOENIX (AP) - A federal appeals court granted a stay of execution Tuesday for Luis Mata, a death row inmate since 1977, who is scheduled to die early Thursday morning.
The three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco did not offer any opinion with the order, which the state immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Because the stay could be lifted Wednesday by the Supreme Court, a Wednesday morning hearing before the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency was still scheduled. The board will vote whether or not to ask Gov. Fife Symington to spare Mata.
In appeals filed in the past week to the 9th Circuit and to the U.S. Supreme Court, Mata's lawyers argued that he was wrongly sentenced to death in 1977 for killing Debra Lee Lopez. Lopez's throat was slashed so severely she was nearly decapitated.
At the time Mata was sentenced, there was no clear legal definition of ''especially cruel, heinous and depraved behavior.'' It was under those conditions that he was given the death penalty.
Arizona joins trend of states suing tobacco companies
PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona sued the tobacco industry Tuesday, claiming it is financially responsible for the cost of health care the state has provided to indigent smokers.
The suit was filed by state Attorney General Grant Woods in Maricopa County Superior Court.
It fails to name a specific damage figure, but Woods said, during a June news conference, that Arizona will seek $500 million. About $300 million would be for health care costs already paid by the state to treat smoking-related illnesses in poor people. The remaining $200 million would be used to cover future expenses.
''It is time to hold the tobacco companies responsible for the misery they have caused the citizens of the state of Arizona,'' he said in a statement.
Arizona and Kansas, which also filed suit Tuesday, are the latest states to sue the tobacco industry. Michigan is expected to file a lawsuit Wednesday.
Among the defendants named in most of the cases: R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Philip Morris Inc., Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp. and its owner, B.A.T. Industries, The Liggett Group, Lorillard Tobacco Co., The American Tobacco Co., The Council for Tobacco Research U.S.A. Inc. and The Tobacco Institute Inc.
Arizona's lawsuit alleges the companies failed to disclose the harmful effects or addictiveness of smoking, manipulated nicotine levels, and directed marketing efforts toward children.
Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore filed the first tobacco-related lawsuit in 1994. It is expected to go to trial next year.
Other states that have filed suit are Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Texas, Washington and West Virginia. New Jersey and Alabama have announced plans to file similar suits, but have not yet done so.
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