Monday, September 26, 1988AThe Battalion/Page 5
World and Nation
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Social
iatives from welf are to child care
hanging in the balance as Con-
ssdraws toward adjournment, in-
asingly impatient and preoccu-
dwith presidential politics,
n a year of rhetoric about the
icrican family, lawmakers have
to complete action on major ini-
ives to raise the minimum wage,
land and improve child care, re
in the welfare system and guar-
ee leave to workers with pressing
aily responsibilities.
\ number of appropriations bills,
luding one providing about $300
ion for the Defense Department,
it been approved in some form,
[differences remain between the
■use and Senate versions.
Mso on the incomplete roster is
biggest environmental bill of the
)th Congress, a revision of the
an Air Act to strengthen the bat-
against urban air pollution, acid
nand airborne toxic substances.
Senate Majority Leader Robert C.
rd, D-W.Va., has warned senators
L prepared for Saturday sessions
he 100th Congress is to end by
t| 16 — two weeks beyond the
final target date for finishing
ilness.
The Senate has been mired for
days on a bill to raise the minimum
wage from $3.35 to $4.55 over three
years, unable to cut off a filibuster
mounted by conservative Republi
cans. The week ended with no reso
lution and a vow to try again this
week.
Also scheduled this week is an
equally controversial family leave bill
opposed by small business lobbies.
The measure would guarantee
workers with a newborn, newly
adopted or very ill child at least 10
weeks of unpaid, job-protected
leave. Workers with serious medical
problems themselves would be enti
tled to at least 15 weeks of leave
without losing their jobs.
Welfare negotiators were meeting
Monday to discuss the latest offers
and counter-offers on an overhaul
bill that would bolster child support
payments from absent parents and
create a major jobs, training and ed
ucation program for welfare recipi
ents.
In the House, a handful of nego
tiators led by Rep. Augustus Hawk
ins, D-Calif., are firmly opposed to a
work requirement for two-parent
families on welfare. The Reagan ad
ministration is just as firm about its
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Two private banks announce closing
PR1DDY (AP) — Stacks of old-
fashioned, blank, white “Eleanor
checks” or an “Eleanor National”
have been kept on the counters of
local shops fear years and were a
common currency for residents.
But soon they will be gone.
Eleanor Jeske Gromatzky is
voluntarily closing one of the
state’s last three private and unin
sured banks, the Farmers Sc Mer
chants Bank (Unincorporated).
The bank, which holds about
0 personal accounts, will cease
operation at the end of the year.
F&M traditionally refused to
supply personalized, numbered
checks.
Customers used the white
counter variety or specially or
dered some on their own.
Another private bank, San An
tonio’s D&A Oppenheimer Bank,
will wind down at the end of the
year, leaving just the E.L. Price
Bank of Galveston.
“The end of an era,” said Grp-
matzky, a white-haired woman
whose father Carl Jeske, orga
nized the Mills County bank May
17, 1917, at the back of his gen
eral store.
urricane Helene turns to North Atantic
MIAMI (AP)— Hurricane He
lene strayed further from land as
it continued pushing north Sun
day to chillier waters that even
tually will sap its strength, Na
tional Hurricane Center
forecasters said.
Helene turned from north-
northwest to north and was ex
pected to keep churning across
the central Atlantic Ocean, hurri
cane expert Hal Gerrish said.
At noon EDT, the storm’s cen
ter was near latitude 20.5 north
and longitude 49.0 west, or about
875 miles northeast of Antigua
and 1,650 miles southwest of the
westernmost Azores. Helene,
with top sustained winds of 1 15
mph,was headed north at 8 mph.
“Some gradual weakening is
possible during the next day or
two,”Gerrish said.
Hurricanes are comprised of
strong winds revolving around
warm cores of low pressure fu
eled in part by the tropical waters
that spawn them. Cold water
weakens the storms, draining
their steam.
If Helene stays on its northerly
course, it eventually will will die
out, unlike Gilbert, which turned
its deadly winds west and grew
into a category 5 hurricane — the
strongest possible.
Both storms came out of Africa
as disturbed weather systems this
month, the busiest time of the six-
month Atlantic Hurricane Season
that begins June 1.
Helene is the eighth named
storm of the 1988 Atlantic hurri
cane season, and the fourth with
winds that exceed the 74 mph,
classifying it as a hurricane.
Card company creates cards for blind
KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) —
With something as simple as a
greeting card, Truesillia Ruth
Shank hopes to help bridge the
gap between the worlds of the
sighted and the blind.
“It seems so unfair that a blind
person should miss out on the
simple, little pleasures of life,”
Shank said, sitting in the living
room of her modest home that
doubles as the office for her 7-
month-old card company, Su-
curre Greetings. Sucurre is an
Old French word meaning “to as
sist.”
“Can you imagine being 30, 40
or 50 years old and having to wait
for someone to read a stack of
Christmas cards to you? Or not
being able to go into a store and
pick out an anniversary card for
your wife or a birthday card for
yourchild?” she asked.
The inspiration for Sucurre
Greetings, which Shank owns
with her husband, came while she
was working on an advertising
project with a blind businessman.
“He was doing things I
couldn’t do even with my sight,”
she said. “It just didn’t seem right
that he needed someone to go to
a store with him just to pick out a
card.”
Because of the limited market,
Braille greeting cards have not
been manufactured by estab
lished card companies, Adam
Ash, publisher of the Gift Re
porter, a trade publication for the
gift industry, said.“These cards
are designed specifically for a vi
sually impaired person, but are
still appealing to a sighted person
as well,” Paul Ponchillia, a profes
sor in the Department of Blind
Rehabilitation at Western Michi
gan University, said.
b
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insistence that the requirement be
included.
The changes didn’t move Hawk
ins, said his spokesman, Jay Butler,
but other negotiators appeared
headed toward compromise with a
final overhaul costing about $3 bil
lion in the offing.
Sens. Christopher Dodd, D-
Conn., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, re
portedly have agreed on major el
ements of a compromise, bipartisan
child care bill based on the Demo
crats’ $2.5 billion Act for Better
Child Care Services.
The bill would help low-income
and, to a lesser extent, middle-in
come families pay for child care and
would require child care homes and
centers receiving federal money to
conform to minimum federal health,
safety, training and staffing stan
dards.
The powerful National Education
Association, along with the Parent-
Teachers Association, the American
Civil Liberties Union and other
groups are mounting a campaign
against the bill because church-spon
sored day care programs would be
eligible for aid.
AIDS bill approved
after controversy
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hard
line conservatives suffered a string
of defeats on the way to House ap
proval of a bill that expands volun
tary AIDS testing and counseling
without forcing states to test large
groups of people in order to get fed
eral money.
The House passed the AIDS Fed
eral Policy Act 367-13 on Friday in
much the same form as it emerged
from nearly two years of hearings
and negotiations.
The act is built on a $400 million-
a-year testing and counseling grant
program. It also would protect the
confidentiality of test results and
speed up research into acquired im
mune deficiency syndrome and the
virus that causes it.
States would have to comply with
a number of conditions to get the
federal funds.
With some fancy parliamentary
footwork. House sponsors of the
measure managed to send their bill
straight into a conference to be rec
onciled with a Senate AIDS educa
tion and research bill to which it
bears little resemblance.
The maneuver enables supporters
to bypass, for now, what would
surely be a lengthy and acripionious
Senate floor debate on testing, confi
dentiality and AIDS in general. But
Well-wishers
brave storms
for Emperor
TOKYO (AP) — Emperor Hiro-
hito lay in serious condition Sunday
but was alert enough to watch the fi
nals of the autumn sumo tourna
ment on television, and a daughter
who paid a bedside visit expressed
optimism about his health.
Thousands of well-wishers braved
thunderstorms and cold rain to
throng the gates of the moated Im
perial Palace in central Tokyo under
a sea of bright umbrellas. Palace offi
cials say 300,000 have signed their
names in a dozen registries set up
nationwide to pray for Hirohito’s re
covery.
The 87-year-old monarch re
mained under intensive, round-the-
clock care by a team of court doctors
after vomiting blood from an intesti
nal hemorrhage on Monday. The
emperor has sat on Japan’s Chrysan
themum Throne for nearly 62 years.
His condition was serious but ap
peared stable. Palace officials ac
knowledged Hirohito discharged a
small amount of blood Sunday
morning,.
The officials would not confirm
published reports the emperor has
cancer of the upper intestine. Can
cer is rarely acknowledged publicly
in lapan.
Under the Constitution, the em
peror has no political power but
signs documents already approved
by the government and serves as a
symbol of Japan’s unity.
senators eventually will be asked to
approve a conference report and
some may balk because they never
had a chance to debate the testing el
ements.
The AIDS virus that causes the fa
tal disease most often is spread
through close contact with contami
nated blood, blood products or se
men; its principal victims have been
homosexuals and intravenous drug
users.
The House bill, sponsored by
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., rep
resented months of work reconciling
the vastly differing approaches of
liberals and conservatives to the
AIDS epidemic.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chair
man of the Energy and Commerce
Committee, said the bill addresses
“gaping holes” in the federal re
sponse to AIDS.
“It is good policy stripped of con
troversial provisions that might di
vide members,” he said. “While peo
ple get sick and die, we can debate
whether this legislation is perfect or
we can act to fight an epidemic that
is ravaging our people.”
Conservatives had some impact
on the final product, chiefly in forc
ing sponsors to drop a section out
lawing discrimination against people
with the AIDS virus and AIDS-re
lated medical problems. But hard
liners lost a number of floor battles
in a big way.
Attempts to make states test all
prison inmates, most hospital pa
tients and many marriage license ap
plicants lost by large margins, as did
a requirement that states collect
identifying information on AIDS vi
rus carriers.
And just before passing the bill
Friday, House members soundly de
feated 279-105 an attempt to require
doctors to make “a reasonable ef
fort” to notify spouses of carriers.
The bill as passed would give
states $200 million for each of the
next three years for testing pro
grams; the remaining $200 million a
year would go directly to health care
facilities serving high-risk popula
tions.
Testing would have to be volun
tary and accompanied by counsel
ing. Anonymous testing and the use
of pseudonyms would have to be
permitted to the extent possible un
der state laws.
All persons convicted of prostitu
tion or crimes related to sexual as
sault or intravenous drug abuse
would have to be tested. States also
would have to collect demographic
information about those who test
positive and establish civil and crimi
nal penalties for violations of confi
dentiality standards outlined in the
bill.
Health professionals or others
who violated the standards, whether
intentionally or not, could be fined
up to $10,000 for each offense. An
intentional violation could result in
up to a year in prison.An intentional
violation could result in up to a year
in prison; a person harmed by im
proper disclosure could sue for at
least $2,000.
The bill permits disclosure of pos
itive test results under certain cir
cumstances, including to sexual
partners and needle-sharing con
tacts unlikely to be notified by the in
fected individual.
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