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NEW BEDFORD -- The rift between the City Council and Mayor Rosemary S. Tierney over needle exchange has widened to impede progress on other fronts, even issues dealing with drug treatment, city officials concede.
As city councilors were extolling the virtues of drug treatment and the need to take a more active role in that process last week, the council swept aside the only two city positions devoted exclusively to helping drug addicts.
FAIRHAVEN -- The New Bedford-Fairhaven bridge was out of commission for about an hour last night due to an electrical problem.
According to town police, just before 10:30 p.m. the bridge operator couldn't fully close the bridge and traffic had to be turned away by Fairhaven and New Bedford police. Fairhaven police redirected traffic from Main Street, and city police stopped traffic at the Purchase Street intersection.
NEW BEDFORD -- The federal government expects to announce next week that applications will be available for fishing boat owners who want to apply to be included in an expanded $25 million boat buy-back program.
"We are awaiting clearance to publish the final rules by Friday or so, and hope to have an announcement by next Monday," said John K. Bullard, director of the Office of Sustainable Development and Intergovernmental Affairs in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
ACUSHNET -- Superintendent Stephen B. Hosmer resigned last night just 15 days prior to the start of school.
Mr. Hosmer will become superintendent of public schools in Pomfert and Eastford, Conn., where class starts this morning.
Mr. Hosmer's action was a surprise to the School Committee, which accepted the resignation with regret and started thinking about a search for both a new superintendent and Middle School principal.
WAREHAM -- Voters at the October town meeting will be asked to spend $500,000 to solve another short-term school space crunch -- this time at the town's middle school.
The request comes as school officials prepare to open the doors of the long-dormant West Wareham School on Sept. 5 to help ease elementary school crowding, especially at the Decas School.
"The crisis at the elementary level is over," Supt. Wayne LaGue told selectmen last night. "We have now have to face a crisis at the middle school level."
By Jack Stewardson, Standard-Times staff writer
NEW BEDFORD -- It has hung for the past eight years like a sword of Damocles over the local fishing fleet.
The long-standing IRS dispute over crew withholdings threatened the viability of several score of fishing vessel owners trapped in a dispute that potentially might have cost what has been estimated as more than $10 million in back taxes, penalties and late interest charges.
But on Monday, however, finally, seemingly, it was all behind them as President Clinton signed a minimum wage law which included a rider to resolve the IRS standoff.
WAREHAM -- The local man who jumped from an Onset bridge, then led police and harbormaster employees on an hour-long chase was fined $100 in court yesterday.
MARION -- The Planning Board and the growth oversight committee will begin a series of public hearings on Sept. 9 to discuss the pending growth management plan.
The series of meetings with the community is expected to shape bylaw changes to be proposed at next spring's town meeting.
By Preston P. Forman, Standard-Times staff writer
DARTMOUTH -- It takes a small army to move a house. It takes nearly a legion to move two down one of the most congested areas of Southeastern Massachusetts.
Yesterday morning, a helmeted legion of more than 250 electric, cable, telephone, highway, police and fire personnel helped push two nearly 100-year-old houses off their foundations on a three-day journey to new locations.
The homes, making way for more development on Route 6, are the dreams of a family and a single man for a home of their own. Cathy and Stephen Pettey are moving their 12-room house to land they own in Westport. Marc Maynard is moving his house to land on Reed Road in Dartmouth.
MOSCOW -- Amid news reports that the president is hospitalized awaiting heart surgery, the Kremlin said yesterday that Boris Yeltsin left the capital on a sudden trip to inspect a possible vacation site.
Echo Moscow radio reported that Mr. Yeltsin has been in a Moscow heart clinic since Thursday in "moderately grave" condition, but quoted presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky denying the report as "complete nonsense."
By Barry Renfrew, Associated Press writer
GROZNY, Russia -- Russian soldiers attacked the main route out of the Chechen capital yesterday, black smoke billowing around civilians fleeing a threatened all-out Russian assault.
The chief Russian military commander in Chechnya 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.
BOSTON -- Women who work with equipment generating strong magnetic fields may be at greater risk of developing breast cancer, a new study concludes.
But according to the study, led by researchers from the Boston University Medical School, the increased risk was modest and further work was needed.
High-risk jobs included electrical engineers, computer equipment operators, working with fluorescent lights and operators of mainframe computers.
By Patricia O'Connor, Standard-Times staff writer
DARTMOUTH -- Sen. John F. Kerry told a gathering of educators and industry leaders yesterday he is confident Congress will make UMass Dartmouth's textile sciences department a member of the National Textile Center and provide it with funding to conduct shared research projects.
Declaring a political victory, town clerks have dropped their month-long refusal to sell hunting and fishing licenses.
Town clerks resumed license sales after the state gave them and city clerks the right to charge $1 more in local processing fees beginning next year.
The state also suspended until Jan. 1 a requirement that hunting license buyers either show their previous year's license or take a hunting education course.
BOSTON -- All phone calls, even local ones, will require 11-digit dialing under an amended Nynex plan to add two new area codes in eastern Massachusetts, according to a published report.
The 617 and 508 area codes are running out of available phone numbers and Nynex has proposed that two new area codes be added, in 1998 and 1999. But Nynex wants to keep the existing boundaries and lay new codes on top of the old ones -- 781 in 617 and 978 in 508.
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. trade deficit, after worsening for three straight months, suddenly shrank by 23 percent as demand for foreign cars, computers and other consumer goods decreased sharply.
But in a worrisome sign, the U.S. deficit with China for the first time surpassed the imbalance with Japan. Many analysts predicted this trend would continue for the next several years as China supplants Japan as America's biggest trade headache.
The Commerce Department report yesterday showed that the June deficit narrowed to $8.11 billion following a revised May imbalance of $10.55 billion.
NEW BEDFORD -- The city's unemployment rate remains stuck in double digits, but the number of jobs in the area has actually increased in the last year. Growth in the services sector, which includes the legal, medical and engineering fields, among others, is largely responsible for the gains.
"Basically you have an improving economy, but (the improvement) is not in the traditional, manufacturing sector," said Edward Kaznocha, a labor market economist with the state Department of Employment and Training. "Across the board, that's pretty much the same case everywhere you look."
According to figures released yesterday by Mr. Kaznocha, the city's unemployment rate was 10.4 percent in July, compared with 10.2 percent in June. In July 1995, the city's jobless rate was 12.4 percent.
By Jorene Massi Souweine, Ottaway News Service
Corn.
We pop it, cream it and even decorate with it.
But when we cook it, we often do it wrong.
While the inaugural Whaling City Brewers' Festival on Pier 3 was awash in suds Saturday, there was plenty to eat, as well.
Restaurants vied for the honors in a chowder cook-off, and a longtime New Bedford restaurant came out on top.
By Joycelyn Winnecke, Scripps Howard News Service
The tomato report from my parents' garden in southern Indiana: Three had ripened. They were sliced and eaten plain, still warm from the garden. Green tomatoes with tinges of red promised more soon.
And how are they? "You just forget how good a tomato can be," my mother said.
By Carl Hartman, Associated Press writer
It would probably never have occurred to Leonardo da Vinci to paint the Mona Lisa as a sheep.
But it did to Lindee Climo, a U.S.-born artist who has long lived in Canada. She has produced a collection of 23 paintings, all modeled on works by famous artists, except that she replaces the human figures with ewes and rams.
NEW BEDFORD -- Rademus Lopez supplied the offensive punch and teammate Adam Duclos provided the knockout punch as the Fairhaven Lumber Red Sox evened the Southeastern Massachusetts Baseball Association's championship series at two games apiece with a 9-1 victory over the Fall River Indians last night.
The two teams will square off again tonight at 5:45 at Paul Walsh field in the deciding game of the series.
BOSTON -- The Oakland A's came to Fenway Park last night with the most homers of any team in baseball, on a pace to eclipse the 1961 Yankees record of 240 in a season.
So deep and powerful are the A's that their No. 9 hitter, Mike Bordick, supplied a two-run blast in the seventh inning, snapping a 1-1 tie. They didn't need any power display from Mark McGwire or Terry Steinbach or Geronimo Berroa, their heavy hitters.
By Kevin McNamara, New England Sports Service
FOXBORO -- Whenever his Patriot or New York Giant teams drove within field goal range, Bill Parcells would look over at kicker Matt Bahr and wait for 'the look.'
Sometimes with just a wink or a nod of his head, Bahr would translate his feelings on the potential success of a kick to Parcells. "I'd look at him and he'd know the answer before I even asked him a question. He'd say 'Six more yards,' or, 'Get me to the 33.' If I asked what the chances were, he'd say, 'it's 50-50 from here, Bill.' He knew," Parcells said.
Nine-year-old Randi Wilson of Seaforth, Ont., performed a golfing miracle on the weekend. Here's what Randi did: She got a hole-in-one on the first swing on the first shot she ever made on a golf course.
You heard right. Randi had never played before, then teed up a five-iron on the 103-yard 10th hole at the Seaforth Golf and Country Club, on Saturday and merely aced it.
Dennis Miller is one of the funniest, filthiest, but intoxicatingly sensible people on this gold-silver-bronze-money-craving planet.
Even with toxic tongue, Miller makes me wacko until I weep.
Compiled from wire reports
Jody Posey hit a three-run homer last night and Panama City, Fla., beat an erratic Cranston, R.I., team 8-6 in the 50th Little League World Series at Williamsport, Pa.
Panama City (2-0) scored six runs in the first inning on Posey's second first-inning homer of the series, two bases-loaded walks and two errors by Cranston second baseman Jake Bazirgan, who was replaced by Lew Colby.
Cranston's Tom Michael walked and scored in the top of the first and hit a solo homer in the third before about 15,000 people at Lamade Stadium.
While the crescendo of the "English only" debate fills statehouses, town halls, think tanks and living rooms across America, one has to wonder if Massachusetts Education Board guru and chairman John Silber suffers from a hearing loss. This former Boston University-president-turned-failed-political-candidate-turned-bureaucrat is still clutching one piece of baggage with a huge "Academia" sticker on it.
By John Horn, Associated Press entertainment writer
Girls and young women don't go to movies. They go out with guys who take them to movies.
Call it sexist, shortsighted and stupid. Whatever the label, it's still Hollywood's logic. The film business is run by -- and seemingly for -- boys and men, leaving female film fans vainly scouring movie listings.
Until this summer.
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