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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 1987)
Texas A&M mm The Battalion J®ol.82 No.93 GSRS 045360 14 pages Colleae Station, Texas Friday, February 6, 1987 axi drivers report seeing Waite in Beirut BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Two i drivers said they saw missing lOStage negotiator Terry Waite alking in a southern Beirut suburb hursday with an escort of about 10 nmen and four turbaned Shiite oslem sheiks. Waite, the 6-foot-7 Anglican hurch envoy, was last seen by re- rters Jan. 20 when he left the Riv- ra Hotel in west Beirut to meet the dnappers of two Americans. Since en, Waite has not contacted the church or his family. ■ The taxi drivers, who spoke on | jtondition of anonymity, told the As- | iociated Press they saw Waite walk- png with his escorts in a street close to Hie Lebanese capital’s airport high way at about 3 p.m. Thursday. “I saw him smiling and waving his nd to onlookers as he walked. He wore a gray raincoat,” said one wit ness. “I stopped my taxicab to watch, but the escorts waved me away, shouting: ‘Don’t stop. Drive on.’ I did.” Waite wore a raincoat when he was last seen by reporters. Another taxi driver said he saw Waite at the same time in the same procession, smiling and waving his right arm to onlookers on the left side of the street. Both drivers work in the neigh borhood of the Riviera Hotel, where Waite stayed between his arrival in Lebanon on Jan. 12 and the time he dropped from sight Jan. 20. Waite came to Beirut to try to win the freedom of foreign hostages. A total of 26 foreigners, including eight Americans, are missing and presumed kidnapped in Lebanon. ers nun® d settler lements' budget reportedly targets igher education By Olivier Uyttebrouck pen-irEi Senior Staff Writer rt in tte' . j D | aa ,(lJg Describing Governor Bill Clem- •omnwe ems budget as “sketchy,” Bill Pres- pial, Texas A&M vice chancellor of state affairs, said Thursday that veral substantial higher education dget cuts have been proposed, ich of which would require special islation. The proposal calls for a $140.2 lion withdrawal from the Per- nant University Fund to be bud- ted for university research, Pres- ff Hi said. H But he doesn’t know if this would be a one- or two-year appropria- tipn. ■ The budget also calls for a $49.2 ■ ^Hillion cut in “special items” appro- J ■ Hiations, but doesn’t specify what ^^Hose special items are, Presnal said. ■ The budget also would eliminate $85 million the Legislature agreed H pay to Texas universities for Herestimates in the revenue uni- Hrsities would receive in tuition ■id other income, he said. iroup A&M’s share of this payment is around $6 million, he said, explain- ^Hg the payment as follows: '"'H During the last regular session, He Legislature calculated the higher education budget based on the overestimate of revenues. In September, during the second special session, the Legislature agreed to repay universities an amount between $32 million and $42 million for the miscalculation. Under the governor’s budget however, this payment would be eliminated. Presnal said he has requested a more detailed version of the pro- posed budget. The University had no immedi ate plans for responding to Clem ents’ proposal to draw money form the PUF, he said. “It’s not that we don’t take it se riously, but it’s not brand new ei ther,” he said. “This is the same issue that came up during the special session,” Pres nal said. In August, House Speaker Gib Lewis proposed drawing $1.1 bil lion from the PUF and the Perma- nant School Fund but the bill died in the House Appropriations Com mittee. Presnal said the proposed cut couldn’t be put into effect by pas sage of an overall appropriations bill.Instead, a separate bill would have to be proposed for each mea sure. Many are believed held by Shiite Moslem captors. The taxi drivers said that before Waite’s disappearance, they fre- quendy had seen him walking on the In West Germany, the mass-circu lation newspaper Bild quoted un identified “Beirut security circles” as saying Waite was shot and critically wounded after he tried to escape “I saw him smiling and waving his hand to onlookers . . . I stopped my taxicab to watch, but the escorts waved me away, shouting: ‘Don’t stop. Drive on.’ I did.” — Beirut taxi driver beach or traveling in a motorcade. “I haven’t the slightest doubt about his identity,” one driver said. “I know him and I saw him this af ternoon.” There have been a spate of con flicting reports about Waite. from captivity in Lebanon. The newspaper, in a report prepared for its Friday editions, did not say when the alleged shooting occurred or provide other details. Shiite and Druse militia officials in Beirut scoffed at the newspaper re port. “It’s absolute fantasy,” said one militia official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. Also Thursday, police and mili tary officials in Beirut renewed their denial of any U.S. military action anywhere in Lebanon, following ru mors that U.S. Marines were landing to attack Shiite guerrillas. “We have had no report of any such attack anywhere in Lebanon, yet,” a police official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity. The rumors were sparked by the presence of a flotilla of U.S. warships off Lebanon. Some Leb anese politicians and news media said the warships were ordered into the area to put pressure on groups holding foreign hostages. Two of those groups have threatened to kill their captives in response to an at tack. In Washington, sources speaking on condition of anonymity said no attack on Lebanon was planned. The Reagan administration an nounced the aircraft carrier USS Kennedy would begin a port call in Israel on Friday and that four of the Kennedy’s escort warships had been ordered to sail for home. The Washington sources said one of two Marine amphibious groups now in the Mediterranean soon also would be allowed to head home. “We’re dropping back a bit be cause our presence there is being blown out of proportion with ru mors of invasions,” one U.S. official said. Mid-jet Larry Batton, left, and Jeff Seippel take a look at a Wscale model of an F-16 that was parked near Rudder Fountain Thursday afternoon. Photo by Bill Hughes The model is part of an exhibit which was brought to campus by the Air Force Orientation Group from Dayton, Ohio. w Immigration hotline' experiment allows Social Security card check Two bills before Legislature seek to regulate abortions ristif! By Melanie Perkins Staff Writer In an effort to aid potential em- ers and prospective employees, e Social Security Administration las launched an “immigration hotli- ie,” which, if successful in Texas, nay be expanded nationwide. A six-month test of the hotline be- Hjan. 20 and is aimed at employ ers in the Dallas, El Paso and Corpus 3hristi areas. The program allows employers to receive telephone veri fication of the authenticity of Social Security cards. “For the new immigration law to function properly, employers must be able to hire with confidence and workers must be able to seek jobs without fear of discrimination,” said Sen. Phil Gramm, D-Texas, in a re cent news release. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act — the most sweep ing immigration law in years — con tains two primary issues. First, am nesty will be granted to illegal aliens who came to the United States be fore 1982 and have lived here con tinuously since then. Second, civil and criminal penalties will be im- osed on employers who knowingly ire illegal aliens. Under the latter provision, the See Hotline, page 14 Sandstone Center for Psychiatry to give B-CS more than 100 jobs 7<li ive It By Robert Morris Staff Writer H When it opens its doors in early 1988, the Sandstone Center for Psychiatry, a general care psychi atric facility, will have a strong economic impact on the Bryan- - College Station area. ■ “When completed, the new hospital will create over 100 jobs in the area and have an annual payroll of $2.7 million,” the new hospital’s administrator Ginn Black said. B “We’re talking about a work force with an average salary above $20,000 per year,” he said. “It will include nurses, psycholo- ,sts, accountants, social workers, cupational therapists, and jobs if that nature. “It’s a very high average salary compared to an industrial man ufacturing plant.” ■ The 72-bed facility will provide ‘ftomprehensive, state-of-the-art” treatment facilities for mental and emotional illnesses to the im- .Ml 1 ; mediate and surrounding com- ' munities. ^Substance abuse services, both .TEXAS AVE 507 BARRON PARK HWY COLLEGE STATION Future location of Sandstone Center for Psychiatry alcohol and drug related, will also be provided to adults and teen agers, Black said. “Sandstone is being built by a group of people here in town who feel that there is a need for an up-to-date and modern psy chiatric hospital,” he said. “We have identified the need, gotten organized, and decided to pro vide a facility for the community that it has needed for quite some time.” We have found that people are having to drive out of town to Houston or Austin to find good facilities, he said. The group has a great deal of See Center, page 14 By Christi Daugherty Staff Writer Two bills currently pending in the Texas Legislature seek to regulate abortions in this state. Called viability and consent bills, they are actually two identical bills — one in both the House and the Sen ate. The viability portion would make it illegal for a doctor to perform an abortion if the fetus is “viable,” or ca pable of life outside the womb. The consent portion would re quire teenagers 17 years old or younger to obtain written parental permission before having an abor tion. Chris Elliot, a legislative aid to Sen. Ted Lyons, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said the bill consid ers viablity to occur after 24 weeks, which is in the second trimester. Currently, he said, there is no legis lation at all in Texas as to how late in her pregnancy a woman can legally have an abortion. Diane Vount, director of the Houston Women’s Clinic, said their clinic performs no abortions beyond the 16th week of pregnancy. “The risk increases every week that a woman waits,” Vount said, “and not all doctors will do abortions beyond that point.” No abortion clinic contacted of fered abortions any later than the 26th week. Elliot said, “Generally doctors consider 24 weeks to be the point at which a baby has a reasonable chance to live on its own.” In both sections of the bill, the doctors who perform the abortion — not women who have it — are re sponsible for the action, he said, which would be considered a Class A misdemeanor, with a maximum two- year prison term. Lyon, D-Rockwall, also sponsored a bill that passed last year which re quired licensing for abortion clinics and set up certain standards they must meet to retain a license. Elliot said, “We think this bill has the best chance to succeed of any abortion bill thus far. In a Democrat ically-controlled Legislature there are now abortion bills in both the House and Senate sponsored by Democrats.” The House bill was sponsored by Rep. Mike Milsap, D-Fort Worth. The bill must meet certain guidelines set down by the U.S. Su preme Court’s Roe vs. Wade deci sion, which determines just how By Christi Daugherty Staff Writer Three Texas House bills now re siding in committee will attempt to tackle the problem of teenage prom iscuity and pregnancy. Proposed by Rep. Lena Guerrero, D-Austin, the bills call for statewide cooperation among schools and par ents to develop a comprehensive program to deal with what has been termed “an epidemic of teen preg nancies.” Eliza May, Guerrero’s legislative aide, said the ideal result of these bills would be a community-based outreach program to educate and aid both the teens and their parents. “It’s our hope that we could give education in the areas of contracep tives and of social activity,” May said. “We want to get the idea out to the kids that delaying sexual activity is not such a bad thing, but if you do involve yourself in sexual activity, protect yourself.” The bills suggest the involvement of the Texas Education Agency in much the abortion industry can be regulated. Much state regulation is allowed in the third trimester, while less reg ulation is permitted in the second. “We’re acting under the assump tion that any baby of sufficient de velopment to live outside the womb has the right to do so,” Elliot said. In its current form, the consent portion of the bill leaves open the option of judicial consent, which would allow a minor to receive the See Abortions, page 14 developing classes to educate young sters more effectively about the truth and consequences of teenage sex, May said. Betty Howell, assistant principal at A&M Consolidated High School in College Station, said sex educa tion is taught in a required health class at the beginning of each stu dent’s freshman year. The sex edu cation part of the class is taught by two female coaches, she said, and is considered comprehensive. But still, she said, College Station has a problem with teen pregnancy, and she agrees with Guerrero that more than education will be required to solve the problem. “It would take a combination of education, a change in social values and parents being more involved with their children’s lives,” Howell said. “It’s not that College Station has a problem, it’s a problem with so ciety.” Flowell can’t foresee many educa- See Teens, page 14 Texas teen pregnancy bills call for parents' cooperation