Page 6
NEWS
Thursday, Jui*
THE BATTALION
News in Brief
Preschoolers
held hostage
WASSERBILLIG, Lux
embourg (AP) — A man
armed with a pistol,
hand grenade and knife
held some 20 children
and two teachers
hostage at a small-town
preschool early Thurs
day. He had released
eight children earlier
and demanded a plane
and a car.
Up to 30 children,
none older than 7, were
taken hostage in mid-af
ternoon Wednesday by a
40-year-old man in
Wasserbillig, near the
Germany border.
The suspect had
been holding between
25 and 30 children be
fore police persuaded
him to release eight,
said Victor Schlentz of
the Luxembourg police.
He added that police
were trying to verify how
many children were still
being held.
who survived. The
woman was unable to
identity Yates from a pho
to lineup but said he
looked like the man who
had assaulted her, police
said in court documents.
The prosecution con
tends robbery was a mo
tive in the killings be
cause the victims had
been stripped of cash
and purses. The women
were shot with small-cal
iber weapons and their
heads were wrapped in
plastic grocery bags.
Fire ravages
New Mexico
Alleged killer
enters plea
SPOKANE (AP) — A
man charged with shoot
ing and killing eight pros
titutes in one of the
state’s largest serial
killing cases pleaded in
nocent Wednesday.
Robert L. Yates, 48,
entered the pleas to ag
gravated first-degree
murder stemming from
the killings in Spokane
in 1997 and 1998.
He also pleaded inno
cent to single counts of
first-degree attempted
murder and first-degree
robbery stemming from
an assault on a woman
PECOS, N.M. (AP) —
Firefighters worked
Wednesday to turn the
front edge of a 22,000-
acre fire north toward
the Pecos Wilderness
and away from the main
watershed for Las Ve
gas, N.M.
Ground crews with
bulldozers cut'fire lines
to protect the Gallinas
Canyon watershed a
mile away, while air
tankers carrying fire re
tardant and helicopters
carrying buckets of wa
ter hit the fire from
above.
The columns of
smoke that roiled sky
ward Tuesday were gone
Wednesday as thick
smoke laid flat over the
burned and burning
area, blanketing Inter
state 25 in spots. The
air was hazy and
smelled of smoke in Las
Vega. The city is about
12 miles from the blaze
and out of its path.
A wildfire set by light
ning May 24 has burned
through 9,500 dry acres
of Kaibab National For
est in Arizona.
Former Air Force captain discharge
01
dui
Military orders doctor to repay $70,000 education fee for admitting homosexual
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — In exchange for a four-year
commitment to the Air Force, Dr. John Hensala got top
flight medical training at Northwestern University and
Yale, unburdened by the costs of tuition and books.
Then, seven months before the psychiatrist was to re
port for full-time military duty, he announced to his supe
riors that he is gay.
He was promptly discharged and billed $70,000 for the
cost of his education.
The military has made similar demands of dozens of
other gays who have been ousted. But Hensala is chal
lenging the demand for reimbursement in court, in what
could be the first such lawsuit against the Pentagon.
The Air Force said Hensala deliberately timed his an
nouncement to get out of his military obligation.
But Hensala, 35, said he did not know he was gay when
he signed up.
"This is largely on principle," Hensala said in an inter
view in his apartment in San Francisco's largely gay Cas
tro District. "I would be able to pay back the funds even
tually. But an employer who fires someone just because
they're gay ... 1 don't think it's the right of the employer to
say, 'You owe us this money/"
In 1986, before the military's "don't ask, don't tell" pol
icy, Hensala entered the Armed Forces Health Professions
Scholarship Program. In exchange for tuition, Hensala
served 20 weeks of active duty over four years.
He earned a medical degree at Northwestern Universi
ty. The Air Force agreed to defer his active duty service dur
ing his three-year residency at Yale, and then put it off again
while he took a two-year fellowship in child psychiatry at
the University of California at San Francisco.
Finally, in 1994, the Air Force told him that his four years
of active duty would have to begin the following year.
Days later, after he hired a lawyer, Hensala announced
that he is gay.
"In light of recent policy changes concerning homosex
uality ... I have decided that I should inform you, prior to
The Air Force launched an investigation, ltdidne
pute that Hensala is gay, but an investigating offic;
ported: "There is very strong evidence thatCaptl
made the homosexual statement hoping to trigger
tion and avoid his active duty commitment."
Hensala, however, said his coming out happened
In 1988, he told hisparen:
TE
6 *7 do not believe that this
will affect my ability to serve
gradually, very reluctantly,
a few close friends.
But he said eventually he realized he could nottf
patients to live their lives with integrity if he couldij
it. "Being dishonest with co-workers flies in the faced
I was trying to be as a human being," he said.
In 1997, Hensala received an honorable dischai^
in the Air Force as a child
psychiatrist.”
— Dr. John Hensala
former Air Force captain
beginning active duty service, that I am gay," his letter to
his superiors said. "1 do not believe this will affect my abil
ity to serve in the Air Force as a child psychiatrist."
He later submitted a list of gay rights groups with
which he was involved and a list of people who could con
firm his homosexuality. He then called his adviser at Scott
Air Force Base near St. Louis and asked about housing
there for his boyfriend.
der the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and wasordered
imburse the government $68,536.50 for tuition, SI, 1
for books, $150 for board, $285 for equipment rents!
$555.72 for supplies.
Hensala sued in federal court May 18.
Air Force spokesperson Maj. Chet Curtis said ate I
Air Force members who graduated from its medical: |
gram were discharged between January 1996 and Juli
for being gay. All have been asked to repay themoncr
most are doing so, he said.
Stacey Sobel, legal director for the Servicememb I
gal Defense Network, said many ousted gays
money for fear of receiving a bad credit rating orte:
they do not realize they can fight it.
She said Hensala's is the first lawsuit she knows? I
any ousted gav service member against reimbursin'
government for education costs.
ati
Chri:
Hong Kong closes Vietnamese refugee cam
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong
closed its last Vietnamese refugee camp
Wednesday, ending the quarter-century
boat people saga in the territory and leav
ing about 100 people homeless.
At midnight, security guards marclied
out of the remote camp at Pillar Point before
officials pulled the front gate shut and hung
a sign pronouncing its permanent closure.
The government decided in February to
shut the camp and give residency to the
Vietnamese refugees, calling it a humani
tarian solution for them and their Hong
Kong-born children who had been stuck in
the territory awaiting relocation to the West
— some for up to two decades.
But the change has been difficult for
some of the impoverished Vietnamese,
who must find the means to survive in the
affluent society that often is criticized as
discriminatory to immigrants. Many are
unemployed or work odd jobs.
Throughout the day, refugees carted TV
sets, refrigerators, stereos and bags of be
longings to their new homes from the
camp, a collection of two- and three-story
barracks that had provided them with free
housing since 1982.
After the closure, more than 100 people
who claim they cannot afford to move out
defied orders and remained inside the
camp. They want the government to give
them housing and money to stay afloat.
Officials refused to say what they would
do to the people who stayed behind, de
spite earlier threats that they would be
kicked out.
"We will take legal and reasonable mea
sures that the community will find reason
able," said Robert Chan, head of the gov
ernment Civil Aid Service, which took over
the camp Wednesday.
Police earlier searched thebarradl
weapons to prevent violence.
Tsang Sing-san, 26, said bis income!|
occasional construction jobs is noteni*
to pay rent.
"How can I leave? With that comps
tion, I'm not able to get a place to live/
Tsang, who came to Hong Kongona:j»
in 1991.
The government has given some!;
lies moving allowances of about0
$1,460. Some got additional housing
welfare benefits.
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