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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 1986)
Miss Texas A&M for 1986 crowned on Saturday night — Page 3 MUM—■■■!!■■ Ill I imiiimi IIIIIMII Bats silent mistakes glaring as Aggies' skid continues — Page 6 The Battalion Vol. 83 No. 104 GSPS 075360 10 pages College Station, Texas Monday, February 24, 1986 ebels led by Aquino forming government Reagan urges Marcos to resign presidency Associated Press tANILA, Philippines — An em battled President Ferdinand E. Mar- :o$ declared a state of emergency Monday in an ef fort to quell a revolt led by two top military leaders and went on television to scoff at reports that he was preparing to flee the country. ■ut ousted Defense Minister Juan •Ice Em ile, one of the two rebel- DU 1 ' military officials, declared he vas forming a provisional govern- nent led by opposition presidential ialdidate Corazon Aquino. Aquino, broadcasting over the Ionian Catholic station Radio Veri- claimed triumph over Marcos asked for massive demonstra- me victims if flood still meless in :alifornia LINDA, Calif. — E'lood waters in nine days of nearly relentless 1ms continued to recede Sunday paged northern California com- juiities, but thousands of people still unable to return home, spokesman Dale Follas of the Sut- 1 County Office of Emergency ices said a leaking 400-foot Be in a levee at Robbins that red the evacuation of 400 resi- s Saturday showed only “minor age” Sunday. be sag in the west levee of the ler Bypass was shored up and las close to being stabilized. “When hat is confirmed, we can allow peo- ack in," Follas said. Robbins is about 10 miles south of pa County’s Linda-Olivehurst ii, where 26,000 people fled mrsday night after a levee broke [he south fork of the Yuba River, ie levee was repaired Saturday, .and by Sunday as many as 16,000 | esidents were back in their homes egmning the cleanup. Bhe estimate came from Yuba ^County Undersheriff Dennis Moore, H Mo said the news was not as good ] fo| the approximately 1 1,000 people of West Linda, whose homes were still in standing water. tions around Ent ile and Lt. Gen. Fi del V. Ramos, deputy chief of the armed forces, “to consolidate that victory.” “I call upon people to be consider ate, even with the last remnants of the Marcos military,” she said. A military helicopter made a pass at the presidential palace and fired a grenade at the building, according to soldiers on the grounds. They said a tank fired at the helicopter. Associated Press reporter Miguel C. Suarez said he heard several explo sions and M-16 rifle fire from the palace grounds. One soldier said he had been hit by shrapnel and Col. Vicente Tigas of the presidential security com mand told journalists to leave the palace grounds. “We cannot guar antee your safety,” he said. Marcos, in the broadcast over gov ernment television station Channel 4, declared, “I intend to stay on as president.” But the broadcast went off the air abruptly, cutting off the Marcos statement in the middle of a sentence. A rebel force led by Col. Mariano Santiago took over the station after a clash in which at least four people were wounded. The station re mained off the air and a soldier used the muzzle of his gun to tear down pictures of Marcos. Enrile and Ramos announced Sat urday they had broken with Marcos See Rebels, page 5 Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Reagan administration today, for the first time, called on embattled Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos to step down. A statement read by White House spokesman Larry Speakes said: “At tempts to prolong the life of the pre sent regime by violence are futile. A solution to this crisis can only be achieved through a peaceful tran sition to a new government.” The administration has taken an increasingly tough stance against Marcos in recent days. But the latest statement broke from the policy an nounced by Reagan a day earlier. In that statement, Reagan warned Mar cos not to use force against his rebel lious opponents and threatened to halt $55 million in U.S. military aid to the island nation if violence there continued. At that time, Reagan stopped short of urging Marcos to resign, saying that “the matter of effective government in the Philippines is a matter to be determined by the Phil ippine people....” Speakes emphasized, after read ing the official statement this morn ing: “We’ve never called for a tran sition before. That is new.” The statement also said U.S. offi cials had received “disturbing re ports of a possible attack by forces loyal to Gen. (Fabian) Ver,” the for mer armed forces chief of staff and Marcos loyalist, against the leaders of the military mutiny against Mar cos. “We urge those contemplating such action to stop,” the statement said. “President Marcos has pledged to refrain from initiating violence and we appeal to him and those loyal to him and all other Filipino people to continue to do so.” Head First Photo by ANTHONY S. CASPER Scott Southard, a freshman general studies major ing the annual football game between the residents from Irving, dives for an interception Sunday dur- of Dunn and Aston dormitories. Texas Air agrees to purchase ailing Eastern Airlines Inc. Metal piece could aid investigators Challenger’s tank believed found Associated Press Rape Canaveral, Fla. — a submarine recovered a 15-foot-long \e of jagged metal from the At- :ic Ocean floor that officials said iday appears to be part of space ttle Challenger’s external tank, a |y item in the investigation of last month’s explosion. In addition, an unmanned sub- !|rsible has spotted motor parts be lieved to be from the spacecraft’s main engines. A top NASA shuttle official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had said late Friday that the acci dent’s cause could not be positively determined unless additional physi cal evidence is retrieved from the ocean bottom. The most important evidence being sought, he said, was the right solid-fuel booster, followed by the external fuel tank. The booster and tank are deemed important because theories of the cause of the explosion now center on the O-rings used to seal segments of the booster. 1 The seals may have been made less resilient by cold temperatures ei ther from the air blowing off the ex ternal tank or from a leak of super cooled liquid hydrogen or liquid ox ygen from the external tank, investi gators have speculated. Richard Feynman, a physicist at California Institute of Technology, said calculations he supervised dur ing the past week put the tempera ture of the suspect booster joint at 29 degrees Fahrenheit, plus or minus two degrees, at launch time. NASA officials have said their cri teria allowed launches when temper atures on the pad were between 31 and 99 degrees. Associated Press MIAMI — Eastern Airlines, fac ing a shutdown threat from cred itors demanding labor concessiotis, announced early Monday that it had reached an agreement to be taken over by Houston-based Texas Air Corp. The company, which had faced a midnight Sunday deadline for the purchase offer about which it would reveal no details, blamed an uncoo perative union for forcing the sale, Eastern spokesman Glenn Parsons said in a news release. He said a press conference would be held later Monday to announce details. The decision to sell the carrier, which faced looming strike dead lines and threats of being declared in default on some loans by major cred itors came following a meeting of Eastern’s board of directors at which they considered an offer made Fri day by Texas Air, Parsons said. “There is tremendous potential in this agreement to make Eastern a much stronger and more compet itive airline,” said the news release signed by Easter Chairman Frank Borman. “There is no question that the sale was in the best interests of our employees and shareholders.” Eastern’s board had set an un specified deadline Sunday to either obtain concessions or accept the buyout offer, said Eastern spokes man Mark Vogel. “As far as we can determine, the choices offered to all union groups presently are to reach a negotiated settlement or have the airline sold to outsiders,” the pilots’ union said in a statement early Sunday afternoon. Eastern, which is $2.5 billion in debt, had faced a Wednesday pilots’ strike deadline and a March 1 flight attendants’ strike deadline, while its lenders had threatened to put East ern in default and seize its assets if it did not obtain the labor concessions by Feb. 28. National Mediation Board Chair man Walter Wallace and federal me diators Robert Brown and Harry Bickford brought Eastern and nego tiators for the pilots and flight atten dants together in meetings that be gan late Saturday, mediation board spokesman Meredith Buel said. The meetings with the Transport Workers Union, which represents 6,200 working flight attendants along with 1,010 who were laid off Feb. 4, were the first since talks broke off Jan. 20. Eastern angered its unions when it imposed unnego tiated wage and benefit cuts on flight attendants and increased their work ing hours when talks with them broke off. Since last summer, Borman has taken a buyout plan to several com panies, including Trans World Air lines, Ozark Air Lines, Northwest Orient, USAir and the Marriot Gorp., the official confirmed. Borman approached Texas Air Chairman Frank Lorenzo through an intermediary, the official said. Under Lorenzo’s leadership, Con tinental filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Act in 1983, and a bankruptcy judge allowed the carrier to throw out its union con tracts and cut wages in half. In 1985, when Lorenzo offered to buy TWA, two of the airline’s unions gave $150 million in concessions to stop him from gaining control of their employer. Though stripped down and mak ing money, Continental remains in Chapter 11 but hopes to emerge this year. Continental and its parent company both earned their highest- ever annual profits in 1985, despite fourth-quarter losses for both com panies. ax return changes won’t affect ’85 filing jfor’s note — This is the first in a p of five articles written to help layers prepare their 1985 in- Oe tax returns. This installment prs changes from last year. By JIM LUTHER A P Tux Writer [WASHINGTON — As you start f orkonyour 1985 tax returns, don’t *aste a jot of time worrying about proposed changes that the presi- tand Congress have been talking ut for a year. They won’t have an kt on the return that you must py April 15. [he brackets, personal exemption • standard deduction have been jjusted to account for inflation, fid you won’t have to suffer any t'v complexities to get those tax fits. Instead of a $ 1,000-per-person tnption, you get $1,040. And the standard deductions were raised by about 4 percent. Those who do not itemize deduc tions will find they are able to deduct a larger share of charitable contribu tions than they did last year. The de duction is for half the total you gave in 1985. Itemizers and non-itemizers alike will have to file a separate Form 8283 if their total non-cash contribu tions exceed $500. The recipient of a cash donation of $3,000 or more must be listed on the return. If you gave more than $3,000 to one char ity or made any non-cash contribu tion, you won’t be able to use the ul tra-simple Form 1040EZ. Many people will find it easier than before to qualify for the lower tax rates available to unmarried heads of household. The maximum earned-income credit, which benefits lower-income families with children, has been in creased to $550, and some benefits may now be available to those whose earnings exceed $ 10,000. There are some relatively minor revisions in the tax forms, primarily to catch cheats. Among them: • Social Security recipients whose 1985 incomes were large enough ($32,000 for a couple, $25,000 for a single person) to require them to pay tax on part of their Social Security pensions must list their tax-exempt interest on Page 1 of Form 1040. That interest is considered in calcu lating how 1 much of the pension is taxable. • If you paid alimony, you’ll have to list the name and Social Security number of your ex-spouse. • Parents must list any depen dent children who did not live with them in 1985. Schedule 1, which is used by mil lions who file the “short” Form 1040A, has been juggled but there are no substantive changes. And there’s one minor step toward sim plification: You no longer have to make a separate entry on your re turn to show that a portion of your Individual Retirement Account con tribution for 1985 was made in 1986. Two changes in the law will affect taxpayers who buy a car for business use and investors in real estate. Most real estate placed in service after May 8, 1985, must be depreciated over 19 years (rather than 18). The maximum amount of investment credit allowed for a car placed in service after April 2, 1985, generally is $675; the maximum first-year wri teoff is $3,200. And the tax consequences of di vorce have been reduced. Under the new law, a husband, for example, may turn over his share of a home to his wife as part of a divorce set tlement without having to pay capi tal-gains tax. Income tax preparation aid offered A variety of materials aimed at helping in income tax prepara tion are available in the Govern ment Documents Division of Texas A&M’s Sterling C. Evans Library. A video-cassette tape, “How to Prepare Income Taxes,” explains in detail the preparation of 1985 tax form 1040 as well as supple mental forms. The tape can be checked out from the Govern ment Documents Desk on the sec ond floor and viewed in the li brary’s Learning Resource Department on the sixth floor. According to David Gay, gov ernment documents librarian, “the tape is ideal for individual use because it is set up for the user to stop the tape at intervals and w'ork on the form.” An audio-cassette tape explain ing the 1040A and 1040EZ also can be checked out from the Doc uments Desk. For more informaton call 845- 2551.