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By Rachel G. Thomas, and Carol Lee Costa-Crowell
Standard-Times staff writers
FALL RIVER -- The Clinton-Gore ticket proved an irresistible draw for more than 10,000 area residents, who snatched that many passes in the first 24 hours they became available.
"We gave out 2,000 in one hour at Government Center," said Skip Darmody, an aide to Fall River Mayor Edward M. Lambert.
"There has been a great deal of interest," Mr. Darmody said, adding there would be enough tickets for all.
The draw, of course, is the scheduled appearance at Kennedy Park Saturday afternoon by President Clinton.
NEW BEDFORD -- Acting Police Chief Carl Moniz is facing a civil rights lawsuit from his former daughter-in-law, alleging that he and two other officers used excessive force in arresting her and her mother without cause nearly four years ago.
The federal suit stems from a Nov. 7, 1992, incident involving visitation rights to Chief Moniz' granddaughter. The trial is scheduled for November and comes as the city prepares to replace retiring Chief Richard Benoit. Chief Moniz is a potential candidate for that post.
FAIRHAVEN -- A proposal to allow hunting on West Island has drawn flak from residents.
The state posted the signs on the conservation land on Sept. 21. Soon after, angry residents painted over some signs and tore others down.
Residents say the island is too small for hunting and that allowing it puts their lives in danger.
"Bullets can go a long way," West Island resident Marion Solomon said yesterday, echoing the sentiments of other residents on the small island.
BOSTON -- Any father would have done it, Darrell Harris says.
When the telephone company technician saw bedraggled children running naked down a street Wednesday, he went to find out why.
Turns out their parents left the night before, and the four boys, ages 7 months to 5 years, were abandoned in their Dorchester apartment wearing heavily soiled diapers with food all over the floor. Their father surrendered yesterday to police.
"I didn't want to get anyone in trouble," said Mr. Harris, 28, who has two children of his own, ages 2 and 7. "Of course, it ran through my head, what if they just went out to the corner store to make a phone call?"
NEW BEDFORD -- That last mile is proving elusive for the city's proposed Whaling National Park as members of Congress were looking for some last-minute maneuvering that might take the parks legislation over a final hurdle.
"It's like a nine-handed game of poker," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. "I'm trying to stay friends with everyone."
"I think this is going to work out," said Rep. Peter I. Blute, R-Mass., who on Wednesday predicted that New Bedford's long cherished dream of a whaling national park will become reality.
By Rachel G. Thomas, Standard-Times staff writer
ACUSHNET -- Gov. William F. Weld arrived late to his fund-raiser last night at the Century House, but the 800 people on hand made it clear his timing was perfect for them.
The affinity, Gov. Weld said, was mutual.
"Bristol County is about my favorite part of the state," Gov. Weld said, to hearty cheers. "The climate is temperate, the people are more friendly here. That has to be true when 800 people turn out to say hello."
Gov. Weld said the race between himself and Democratic incumbent Sen. John. F. Kerry was, and would be, a tight one for a while, and he was standing among the people who would probably help tip the balance.
"I think the difference will be Bristol County," Gov. Weld said. "I know this county like the back of my hand."
FALL RIVER -- State Rep. Michael Rodrigues and attorney John C. O'Neil will spend most of Saturday overseeing a recount of the primary election's 8th Bristol District seat.
Mr. O'Neil filed for the recount of the Fall River votes after a malfunction occurred in a voting machine in one of the city's precincts. He also filed for a recount in Westport.
The district includes all of Westport and seven precincts in Fall River. Westport will conduct its recount on Monday.
WAREHAM -- Three and a half full-time equivalent union jobs are being eliminated at Tobey Hospital, and 6½ more full-time equivalent union spots are being shipped to New Bedford.
Union leaders of Hospital Workers Union Local 767 SEIU International AFL-CIO say the loss of the jobs --all of which are in administration and not health care -- unfairly targets Tobey. They want the jobs to remain in Wareham.
"We didn't expect to be losing jobs. We want them to cancel this," said Jack Van Osdol, a union representative.
Move over, Mo Vaughn and Drew Bledsoe.
When it comes to starring on trading cards, you could be in for some competition.
Would you believe "Bathroom Buddies"?
Tell you the truth, I'd never heard of them until a few days ago, when I got a letter from "R.W. Ibach" of Arlington Heights, Il. Mr./Ms. Ibach (there was no indication of the writer's gender) sent along a copy of a news release from the Topps Co. Inc. promoting their "exciting new product" -- Bathroom Buddies.
Compiled from wire reports
JERUSALEM -- Their fragile peace going up in thick black smoke, Palestinian police and Israeli troops fought with automatic weapons yesterday at holy sites and in the streets of the West Bank and Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians burned tires, threw stones and called for a revolution.
With at least 38 Palestinians and 11 Israelis killed in one day, the pitched level of violence surpassed that of the worst days of the six-year "intefadeh" -- the Palestinian revolt against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza that ended in 1993 with a breakthrough peace accord.
At least 43 Palestinians, 11 Israelis and one Egyptian army officer have been killed since the clashes began Tuesday, bringing the three-day death toll to 55.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Astronaut Shannon Lucid, NASA's space superwoman, returned to Earth yesterday after six debilitating months of weightlessness and to everyone's amazement, walked off the shuttle Atlantis.
Doctors had met her inside the space shuttle with a stretcher, figuring the 53-year-old biochemist would be too weak and wobbly to stand, let alone walk. But she surprised them, insisting, "I can stand up."
After a record-shattering 188 days in space -- most of that time aboard the Russian space station Mir -- she was thrilled to be home.
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The killer of Polly Klaas enraged her family even as he was being condemned to death yesterday with a wild claim that the 12-year-old girl told him before he killed her that she had been molested by her father.
Marc Klaas cried "Burn in hell, Davis!" and lunged at his daughter's killer as he was hustled out of the courtroom. Polly's grandmother wailed aloud and wept, leaning against her husband in shock.
WASHINGTON -- The Senate upheld President Clinton's veto of legislation that for the first time in two decades would have made a form of abortion illegal. But supporters of the ban on so-called partial birth abortions vowed yesterday to keep the issue alive during the election campaign.
After a wrenching debate, the Senate voted 57-41 to override the president's veto of the bill banning the late-term abortion procedure, falling nine votes short of the two-thirds majority needed.
Massachusetts Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy voted to sustain the veto.
By Kelly Kurt, Associated Press writer
SAPULPA, Okla. -- When 7-year-old Drew Carrier told his mother his teacher was mean, she wasn't sure whether to believe him until the second-grader hid his toy tape player in his backpack and recorded a lesson.
"I can't wait till next year when some of you get to third grade. I can't wait," the teacher can be heard telling the class loudly. "I'm going to be checking on your grades ... about half of you will be making F's."
The teacher also scolds one pupil on the 90-minute tape for bothering a classmate, saying, "That's probably why you can't read very well."
BOSTON -- Gov. William F. Weld and Sen. John F. Kerry engaged in a pork-barrel squabble again yesterday, this time over who should get credit for up to $250 million in loan guarantees that would revitalize a shipyard in Quincy.
At the Statehouse, Gov. Weld reversed course by embracing Republican leaders for the first time in months, saying his relationship with them had won congressional language that should allow the guarantees.
Gov. Weld also did not blush when asked whether he believed House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott -- who called him jointly to announce they would approve the shipyard language -- were trying to give him an edge in his race with Sen. Kerry.
"To be honest, I think that's what made the difference," the Republican governor said.
By The Associated Press
BOSTON -- While aides to Sen. John Kerry privately fear that Gov. William F. Weld will pull an "October surprise" and resign from office next month to boost his U.S. Senate bid, Mr. Weld has told them not to worry.
"I won't, I promise," Gov. Weld told reporters yesterday during a question-and-answer session at the Statehouse.
BOSTON -- Eastern Massachusetts residents soon may have different area codes than their next-door neighbors -- or even separate area codes for different lines within their own homes.
The region is due to get two more area codes -- 781 and 978 -- and regulators yesterday took up the issue of whether to assign them based on geographic area, or only for new lines.
In the latter case, favored by cellular telephone providers trying to avoid the cost of reprogramming thousands of phones, next-door neighbors could conceivably have two different area codes.
BOSTON -- In its continuing drive to collect child support payments from deadbeat parents, the state has unveiled its latest most-wanted poster.
The parents, all men on this occasion, collectively owe $466,917 in past-due support. Two are carryovers from the previous poster. The new poster, like its five predecessors, will be displayed in state buildings, MBTA buses and trains, and inside post offices.
By Martin Finucane, Associated Press writer
BOSTON -- The state lottery, its sales fueled by dreams of an easy ticket to a better life, tallied more than $3 billion worth of sales in the past fiscal year, officials said yesterday.
At the same time, lottery operations became more efficient, said Treasurer Joe Malone, who heads the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission. He said administrative expenses have dropped to 2.3 percent of sales, far below the national average of 8.2 percent.
"In every single part of our operation, we're trying to be more efficient, more effective and more creative," Mr. Malone said.
NEW YORK -- Stocks flirted with some record highs yesterday as the latest economic data reinforced an outlook of stable inflation and interest rates.
But most of the day's gains evaporated near the close as a rallying bond market failed to inspire stock investors for the third straight session.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 8.51 to 5868.85 after rebounding from an early 26-point slide and briefly moving past Monday's all-time high of 5894.74.
WASHINGTON -- Fresh signs of a slowing economy emerged yesterday, supporting this week's Federal Reserve decision against raising interest rates to avoid a new round of inflation.
Government reports showed that orders for big-ticket durable goods in August suffered the biggest loss in 16 months, and new claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level since mid-July.
"These numbers make Chairman Greenspan look pretty smart," said economist Maury Harris of PaineWebber Inc. in New York, speaking of Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. "All the data is telling the same story: The economy is slowing down."
WASHINGTON -- ValuJet got its wings back yesterday, winning federal permission to fly again three months after the budget carrier was grounded after a deadly crash and questions about its maintenance operations.
"ValuJet has met all of the FAA's requirements and they've met all of our requirements and we've certificated them to fly," said John V. Coleman, director of the Transportation Department's Office of Aviation Analysis.
He said the airline is authorized to resume service "virtually immediately."
The school year had barely begun when Kathy Haverty, mother of three young boys, reached the end of her rope.
The boys, 9, 8 and 5 years old, were having trouble getting up in the morning. They kept forgetting their homework or their lunches (which they'd end up charging at school). It was clear to Mrs. Haverty, who lives in Marion, that hers were still the boys of summer.
By Jayne Clark, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The principal players are gone and the last episode was filmed 36 years ago. But clearly, a lot of people still love Lucy.
Ask the Michigan woman who just blew $100 and change on Lucy souvenirs. A Lucy teapot. A Lucy bank. A Lucy T-shirt. Some Lucy books.
Or the 9-year-old boy who spent two solid days knocking around old Lucy haunts.
Or the family that gathered around the rack of Lucy postcards acting out scenes depicted in them.
Or the Japanese visitors who put on their best Cuban-American accents to spontaneously warn, "Luuuuucy. You got some 'splainin' to do."
By Barbara Bradley, Scripps Howard News Service
Get a leg up on fashion this fall with a pair of colored tights or opaque stockings, either plain or textured. Tights pack a lot of style punch and are among the easiest and least expensive ways to give your wardrobe a facelift.
Other ways to update range from pantsuits to animal print scarves.
In their fall collections, New York designers often used opaque stockings and tights to create unexpected and sometimes wild mixes of texture and color.
There I was, sitting in my car in the parking lot of the Fitchburg Sentinel, approximately 111 miles from home at quarter to midnight, with my car key lost somewhere in the cracks between the car seat frame and the arm rest.
I could not feel it and could not see it. The light at the roof of the car shed no light on the shadows that had swallowed my key.
A lady in the press room of the Sentinel, where I sought help, told me, "That sounds like something that would happen to me."
"No," I corrected her. "These things only happen to me."
The verdict is in: Most pro football players would say bye bye to the bye week.
About the only possible exceptions to this rule would be the teams that resemble a hospital intensive care unit, like the 49ers, Colts or Bears.
The feeling among most of the Patriots was that the bye week should go the way of bell bottom pants and doing the Macarena in public.
Wareham coach Dave Harrison likes the idea of playing an important South Coast Conference game at home this week.
New Bedford's Wayne Hamlet, on the other hand, is just happy to be home.
While Harrison's Vikings play host to Fairhaven in a key SCC matchup, Hamlet's Whalers make their home debut against Boston College High in the co-highlight attractions on tonight's high school football card.
BOSTON -- It's official.
The Boston Red Sox will not be in the postseason this year, even though they did beat the New York Yankees Jayvees, 5-3, behind Mike Maddux and Heathcliff Slocumb (30th save) last night at Fenway Park.
That's because the Baltimore Orioles also won last night, trimming Toronto, 4-1, and eliminating the Red Sox from the wild-card race.
So the final three games of the season will have no bearing on the standings for Boston, which thrust itself into playoff contention after being buried on Aug. 1, 17 games out of first place and 11½ out of the wild-card spot.
By Sean McAdam, New England Sports Service
BOSTON -- Mike Greenwell wanted to know about his future. Dan Duquette preferred to talk about the present. When their conversation was over, Greenwell spoke about his career with the Red Sox in the past tense.
"This has been a great place to play," said Greenwell from the top of the dugout steps at Fenway Park yesterday. "The fans here have been great, but my time here is done. It's time to move on."
It's been said that everything has its price, and anything can be bought.
And so begins the autopsy of Boston Garden.
Tonight at 7:30, Leland's of New York will conduct an auction called Last Night. They'll sell off a piece of the parquet signed by glory-day Celtics for $500-1,000. They'll start the bidding for the hockey nets at $2,000 apiece. They even plan to get somewhere between one and two hundred for Cam Neely's mouthpiece.
ST. LOUIS
There is a fatalistic splendor to Bob Dole's campaign.
It isn't even really a campaign anymore. It's something more interesting, more absurd, more dark, an inarticulate slouching around cornfields in Ohio and half-empty gyms in Missouri, boldly courting bad luck, bad timing and bad metaphors, inexorably sound-biting itself toward doom.
WASHINGTON
The Bob Dole presidential campaign is not going to win over sizable numbers of baby boomers, their voting age children and other younger Americans by claiming President Clinton is soft on drugs.
Those are the Americans, actually now the majority of voting age Americans, where "soft on drugs" originated and where drugs have been seen, even tolerated, as a part of the landscape. They are also the people among whom Mr. Dole is most likely to be suspect as unknowing and intolerant of younger Americans, too old for the times.
If the third-graders we spoke to are any indication, schools in Southeastern Massachusetts have little to fear from the new edict that reading achievement tests will be mandatory starting next spring -- and that harsh sanctions are in store for schools that don't measure up, not to mention possible repeat grades for pupils who fail. The students in the classrooms we visited were almost all excited about reading and found it both challenging and fun. They knew how to read and, as perfect public relations ambassadors for the schools, they welcomed the chance to prove it.
POOR ELIJAH'S ALMANACK
In the beginning -- meaning fourth grade -- Little Poor Elijah saw homework as a badge of maturity. The way he figured it, you learned more as you got older. Homework just meant you had to practice some of the new stuff at home. That way his teacher could teach him more during the day. At 9 this seemed to him the best use of everybody's time.
By Luaine Lee, Scripps Howard News Service
People will forgive you anything if you do it with enough charm -- and a British accent.
So it's easy to excuse actress Elizabeth Hurley for not talking about her boyfriend Hugh Grant's encounter with a Hollywood prostitute last year.
Ms. Hurley herself was able to forgive. In fact, she and Mr. Grant have just finished a new film together, "Extreme Measures," in which Mr. Grant stars and Ms. Hurley produces. (The film opens today locally.)
Technically, that makes her his boss.
"There are advantages and disadvantages of knowing so well the person you're working with," she says, curling her feet under her on a rust-colored couch here and lighting a Marlboro.
Americans tend to view drug abuse as a relatively recent plague.
We with the shaky historical perspective often link the first widespread use of mood-altering substances to the flower children and war protesters of the psychedelic '60s. Before then, we are inclined to believe only hip jazz musicians and self-destructive beat poets did dope.
In "Hep-Cats, Narcs and Pipe Dreams," author Jill Jonnes dispels that notion, pointing out that America's first "drug epidemic" actually took hold in 1885.
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