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NEW BEDFORD -- Imagine one of the city's most blighted neighborhoods transformed into a vibrant tourist zone complete with a baseball stadium, hotel and even a conference center.
It's little more than a dream right now, but last night the City Council endorsed a plan unveiled by Councilor Brian K. Gomes to change the face of the Logan, Hicks and Washburn streets area; a plan that incorporates his much-talked-about minor-league baseball stadium; and a plan that could require the taking of dozens of parcels of land.
By Rachel G. Thomas, Standard-Times staff writer
NEW BEDFORD -- Decades removed from the battlefield, some veterans still hear the cries of wounded comrades. Others, whose time serving their country did not involve dodging missiles and mines, still battle demons such as drug and alcohol addiction at home.
The people who founded the Veterans Transition House in 1990 decided the vets were not the only ones dealing with their misery; their families and communities bore much of the brunt of broken relationships, unemployment and homelessness.
By William Corey, Standard-Times staff writer
NEW BEDFORD -- Once a chic designer outlet luring shoppers from across the region, Howland Place is in a struggle to re-invent itself.
An ambitious project planned by a Pennsylvania-based development firm that took control of the complex fell through. Ownership has reverted back to Le Groupe Montrose of Montreal, which is trying to fill the nearly empty main building and is negotiating with the city over the amount of taxes owed.
NEW BEDFORD -- A Bristol County corrections officer arrested on marijuana charges will stay on the job until an internal investigation is completed.
"Once we determine all the facts, then I'll make a determination what, if any, action will be taken," Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson said.
Jeremy Shea, a guard at the Dartmouth jail and a member of the sheriff's department honor guard, was arrested Aug. 28 by Detective Paul Oliveira after New Bedford police stopped his car and found a small bag of marijuana.
WESTPORT -- Special town meeting looming on the horizon was the impetus to bring the School Committee and the teachers union back to the negotiation table.
School Committee Chairwoman Deanna Chase said her board ratified a proposed three-year contract Monday night. Now it needs the approval of the rank-and-file of the Westport Federation of Teachers.
WFT President Deborah Johansen has scheduled a meeting for Monday for union members to vote on the contract.
By Michelle Boorstein, Associated Press writer
ARLINGTON, Va. -- After three days that put the details of his kinky sex life on trial, Marv Albert pleaded guilty yesterday to assault and battery charges that could bring him a year behind bars and perhaps a lifetime of humiliation. Within hours, NBC fired him.
"From my point of view, I just felt like I had to end this ordeal," Albert said outside court in a weary voice after agreeing to a deal in which prosecutors dropped the more serious charge of forcible sodomy, which carried from five years to life in prison.
By Marcia Dunn, Associated Press writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Just hours after getting a controversial go-ahead from NASA, space shuttle Atlantis blasted off for Mir late last night with the next American astronaut to live on the ramshackle Russian space station.
NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin approved David Wolf's four-month mission despite pressure to back out before someone gets killed on Mir, then flew down from Washington for Wolf's dazzling departure.
Shuttle Atlantis illuminated the sky as its booster rockets fired at 10:34 p.m., right on time, and put the ship on a course up the East Coast and straight for a Saturday rendezvous with Mir. The space station was passing over Germany, on its 66,278th orbit, when the countdown clocks hit zero.
WASHINGTON -- IRS agents, faces hidden and voices scrambled to protect their identities, told senators yesterday that pressure to increase collections is distorting the nation's tax system and trampling taxpayers' rights. The agency's head apologized for past wrongdoing and promised reform.
"Statistics drive the organization. ... The tail wags the dog," one Internal Revenue Service inspector testified as the Senate Finance Committee concluded three days of hearings featuring horror stories alleging tax agency abuses.
WASHINGTON -- Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr has subpoenaed records of President Clinton, the first lady and top White House aides about possible contacts with investigation witnesses, lawyers familiar with the matter said yesterday.
And in another sign of activity by Starr, a new Whitewater grand jury began work in Washington.
The subpoenas were issued recently by a grand jury in Little Rock, Ark., seeking evidence whether presidential aides or friends have obstructed the investigation.
By Terence Hunt, Associated Press correspondent
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- In a powerful gesture of racial healing, President Clinton pulled open the front door of Central High School yesterday and stood back to welcome nine blacks who had braved hate-filled mobs 40 years ago to break an all-white color barrier.
"What happened here changed the course of our country forever," Clinton said, recalling a racial drama that wrenched America and was seared in history on television screens around the world.
BOSTON -- In a sign that momentum for a new Patriots stadium may be swinging back toward Foxboro, House Speaker Thomas Finneran indicated yesterday he might accept a $50 million package unveiled by state officials.
"Clearly, this is a more rational approach," Finneran said.
Under the new legislation, unveiled by state and local officials yesterday, team owner Robert Kraft would spend $50 million improving the stadium. He would add 7,000 premium seats and improve concession stands, restrooms and other public areas of the stadium.
By Daniel Q. Haney, AP Medical editor
BOSTON -- For the first time, highly detailed scans of cocaine addicts' brains have revealed the precise circuits that are turned on during the drug's initial rush, the euphoria and the craving that inevitably follows.
The technique, which uses a new kind of brain imaging, has given researchers a long-sought peek at precisely what's going wrong biologically inside the head during an attack of a mental disorder -- in this case, drug addiction.
BOSTON -- The Massachusetts Senate took the rare step yesterday of voting for an in-house investigation of one if its own members.
Senators referred the case of Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, D-Boston, to the Senate Ethics Committee on a voice vote with no one objecting.
Wilkerson, 42, pleaded guilty this week to four counts of failing to file her federal tax returns. The Ethics Committee can suggest a variety of sanctions, ranging from a reprimand to a recommendation that she be expelled from the Senate.
BOSTON -- A bill requiring Massachusetts pension funds to dump approximately $200 million in tobacco investments moved a step closer to becoming law yesterday.
The bill was approved by the state Senate. It already has passed the House. And acting Gov. Paul Cellucci has indicated his support.
CAMBRIDGE -- Blood found inside Janet Downing's house on the night she was stabbed to death -- on clothing, on a dimmer switch, on door frames, on walls, in the cellar, on a framed photograph -- closely matches Edward O'Brien's, according to experts who testified yesterday in O'Brien's murder trial.
O'Brien, who was 15 at the time of the killing, is accused of fatally stabbing the 43-year-old Downing, his neighbor and the mother of his best friend, on July 23, 1995, in her Somerville home.
WASHINGTON -- Record sales of existing homes and surging demand for semiconductors and other electronic components in August paint a picture of an economy that continues to expand robustly.
Meanwhile, 2,000 fewer Americans filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, suggesting the nation's jobless rate remained near a 24-year low this month.
NEW YORK -- Stocks pulled back again yesterday as interest rates spiked higher in the bond market after falling toward a 1½-year low over the past two weeks.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 58.70 to 7848.01 after surrendering an early 23-point gain.
Broader stock indicators also posted modest losses as the bond market was jostled by a series of robust economic readings that aggravated inflation worries.
Barbara Zimmerman stumbled off a curb and into a race between drug makers dashing to be the first to replace the most widely prescribed drug in the nation: estrogen.
While nursing her broken ankle, the retired jewelry designer discovered she had osteoporosis. But she balked at taking estrogen -- the conventional treatment for the bone-thinning disease -- when her doctor warned it could raise her risk of breast cancer.
NEW YORK-- What are federal investigators so worried about?
The Federal Trade Commission has launched a broad investigation into whether Intel Corp. broke antitrust law by trying to monopolize the market for computer chips. The probe, disclosed by Intel late yesterday, now means both the chip maker and software giant Microsoft -- the personal computer industry's famous duopoly -- are objects of federal scrutiny.
By Natalie White, Standard-Times staff writer
Fed up with your wife because she doesn't share your passion for a good movie, your dreams for the future? Angry at your husband for not picking up his dirty socks, the kids or your spirits when you're down? Bored with your partner?
Then you're probably in a normal, mature relationship, according to Terrence Real, author of the breakthrough book on men and depression, "I Don't Want to Talk About It" and a book in progress, "True Love: Intimacy in an Age of Lies."
By Carey Hamilton, Associated Press writer
SALT LAKE CITY -- Robert Urich realizes not everyone can afford the million dollars he spent on his cancer treatment.
That's one of the reasons the former star of "Vegas" and "Spenser: For Hire" has teamed with a company that lends the terminally ill money against the value of their life insurance policies.
"Lord knows what would have happened to me if I did not have the kind of resources that I have," Urich said. "There are people who just don't have the funds to survive."
PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. -- When Michael Matute and his friends at McIntosh High School want to study together, they assemble electronically.
Using either Internet Relay Chat or the services of America Online, 15 or so students can work together, share documents, swap questions, develop study outlines and never leave their own homes.
On FridayBob Hanna
There is a solution to that sorry mess up at Yawkey Way, one that will keep almost everyone happy, including Mo Vaughn and John Valentin.
And CEO/owner John Harrington can accomplish it with a snap of his fingers.
Dump Duquette.
That's right, fire him, get rid of him. There are a lot of other GMs available who can operate a computer without antagonizing everyone on the team in the process.
More...
By Sean McAdam, New England Sports Service
DETROIT -- The afternoon fairly screamed the word "vindication," in bold, capital letters, but Steve Avery was having none of it.
No, he wasn't nervous. No, he wasn't feeling any additional pressure. And no, he didn't feel he had anything to prove.
He was just happy to be on the mound, back in the starting rotation again, if only for a day.
By Bill Parrillo, New England Sports Service
SOTOGRANDE, SPAIN -- The message was loud and clear to Brad Faxon. Tom Kite, captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, wasn't giving up on him.
In pairing him with Fred Couples for one of today's four-ball matches, Kite was showing confidence in the embattled golfer from Barrington.
For one thing, Kite was breaking up another terrific four-ball team in Couples and Davis Love III, who have had a lot of success as a team.
FOXBORO -- When the Patriots signed free agent defensive tackle Henry Thomas to a two-year contract during the offseason, the hope was he'd provide them with a strong inside pass rush.
What almost nobody (except player personnel director Bobby Grier) could have suspected, however, was that Thomas also would be a terrific role model for his younger teammates.
But Thomas has been a leader on the field since the first day of training camp, and his play has been one of the primary reasons why the Pats have gotten off to such a fast start in defense of their AFC championship.
By Paul Newberry, Associated Press writer
ATLANTA -- Go ahead, call Greg Maddux a control freak. He doesn't mind a bit.
This season, the Atlanta Braves pitcher and four-time Cy Young Award winner took his already impeccable control to new levels. He walked only 20 hitters in 232 2-3 innings, an average of 0.774 walk per nine innings. And consider this: Of those 20 walks, six were intentional.
One of the most sharply defined issues in the New Bedford mayoral race is the fate of the old downtown police station. The odd thing is, to those who are not actually running for mayor, the issue isn't clear-cut at all. And yet Mayor Rosemary Tierney, especially, digs in deeper by the day with her insistence that a new station cannot and should not be built. The mayor isn't fazed by Fall River's experience. Even as she took a tour this week of that city's sparkling new $9 million central police headquarters, she reviewed the various -- and, to many minds, unsupported -- reasons why New Bedford can't do something similar.
When it comes to sexual relations between the sexes, it's become dogma that "when a woman says 'no' she means 'no.' " It's a "truism" used by feminists and mainstream commentators alike when discussing everything from sexual assault and harassment cases to dating in the '90s.
Most recently, this phrase has been repeatedly uttered by legal and other analysts examining the ugly details surrounding the Marv Alpert sexual assault trial, even by those criticizing the woman involved on other issues.
ALBANY, N.Y.
Normally, just to avoid telemarketers, I let the machine answer the phone. This time, though, I'd picked it up myself. And I'd actually bought what the telemarketer was peddling.
As she took the order, she asked me where I live. I told her.
"Where's that?" she asked.
"It's an Albany suburb," I explained.
"I talk to 200 people a day," she said. "You know, everybody seems to live in a suburb of someplace else."
"Directing has taught me a lot about life," admits Adam Arkin, the caring Dr. Aaron Shutt of the hit CBS-TV series "Chicago Hope."
Arkin began directing 10 years ago, and he continues today with the hour-long hospital-drama series.
"Directing yourself isn't that difficult," he says. "I've played Shutt for (four) seasons, so I've gotten into his skin. The only thing I request is a video playback of whatever scenes I'm in.
Tonight's family friendly Friday fare features shows about a 17-year-old witch, a high-school angel, a 9,000-year-old alien and a 2000-year-old genie. No wonder the vaguely realistic "Gregory Hines Show" looks so good.
A wise-crackin', prank-playin' Mike Damus is the star of "Teen Angel" (9:30 p.m., ABC, TV-G) premiering tonight. After eating a 6-month-old hamburger on a dare, the soul of Marty DePolo (Damus) is whisked to heaven where The Head (Ron Glass) assigns him to be the guardian angel for his old pal Steve (Corbin Allred). This "Teen Angel" may wear wings, but he returns to earth (and high-school) with all of his adolescent rebelliousness.
It took all kinds, and they took all the copies they could grab.
British tourists on holiday, compulsive buyers adding to their collections, men sheepishly buying for their wives, and men weepily getting copies for themselves.
The Elton John song memorializing Diana, Princess of Wales, went on sale nationwide Tuesday, with some stores selling out within hours.
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