National briefs

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 5, 2001

U.S., Calif. act to resolve electricity crisis

LOS ANGELES -- Alarmed by the rapidly deteriorating financial condition of California's power utilities, top state and federal officials took urgent steps Thursday to solve the state's energy crisis, including an emergency 90-day increase in the rates charged consumers and plans for senior state and federal officials to meet at the White House on Tuesday.

Although the utilities declared the rate increase, of roughly 10 percent, insufficient to keep them from sliding toward bankruptcy, they expressed some relief that officials in the state and in Washington were beginning to search for a more comprehensive solution.

The intervention by the state's Public Utilities Commission suggested to many that its experiment in energy deregulation had failed.

"We are voting the epitaph for deregulation in California today," said one commissioner, Carl Wood. "Deregulation is dead."

For residential customers, the move will amount to about a $5 increase on the average monthly bill of $55.

Wall Street wasn't impressed: Stocks for both companies dropped for a second day and their credit ratings were sharply downgraded.

Deal to end quotas in Tenn. higher learning

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A federal judge approved a settlement Thursday that would end decades of court-ordered desegregation and racial quotas at Tennessee's public colleges and universities.

The original lawsuit was filed 32 years ago by Rita Sanders Geier, then an instructor at predominantly black Tennessee State University. She sued the state to end what she called a "dual system of higher education" and to get more money for her school.

In 1984, U.S. District Judge Thomas Wiseman ordered that racial quotas be set for admissions to Tennessee State and nine other schools and that the federal government monitor desegregation efforts.

The agreement Wiseman signed Thursday would require the state to invest up to $75-million in Tennessee State programs over the next 10 years and would end quotas and court supervision within five years.

Fire risk prompts recall of 300,000 Fords, Mercuries

WASHINGTON -- Ford Motor Co. is recalling about 300,000 1995 Contour and Mercury Mystique sedans because the engines can overheat and possibly start a fire.

The recall affects those vehicles with a 2.5 V6 engine built from April 1994 to December 1995. It includes 278,875 Contours and 21,143 Mystiques.

There have been 149 fires reported because of the problem, Ford spokesman Mike Vaughn said Thursday. He said there were no deaths.

Vaughn said that Ford will send a letter to vehicle owners this month and that dealers will fix the problem free of charge by installing an electronic fuse.

Also . . .

HOME FIRE: A pot filled with cooking grease for french fries caused the fire that killed 11 people and wiped out four generations of one family in Oak Orchard, Del., authorities said Thursday.

COLLEGE FIRE: An open flame ignited a couch in a dormitory lounge and caused a fire that killed three students and injured 62 people at Seton Hall University in New Jersey last year, prosecutors said Thursday. They named no suspects.

NEWSPAPER STRIKE: Striking employees at the Seattle Times reached a settlement Thursday that could end a 45-day-old walkout and ensure they keep their jobs. The employees could vote on the settlement this weekend and start returning to work soon afterward.

YALE BIAS SUIT: Four Orthodox Jewish students have lost another court challenge in their claim that a sexually immodest atmosphere at Yale University's coed dormitories violated their religious beliefs. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the students could have gone elsewhere if they didn't like Yale's housing rules, which required unmarried freshmen and sophomores under age 21 to live on campus.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: Two Chinese men drowned in shark-infested waters off Guam while trying to swim to shore in an attempt to enter the United States illegally. Three other men found clinging to a buoy were taken into federal custody, and a search continued today for two others still missing. It was the second time in a week that Chinese immigrants tried to enter the United States on Guam, a U.S. territory 3,700 miles west of Hawaii.

MENINGITIS MANSLAUGHTER: A 21-year-old who threw a rock through a windshield in Joplin, Mo., has pleaded guilty in the death of a girl who succumbed months later to a disease contracted from dirt on the stone. Joey Virgo could get up to seven years in prison March 23 for involuntary manslaughter. A doctor had testified that the meningitis that killed LeAnne Hamm, 17, resulted from an organism on the 12-inch rock that hit her in August 1998.

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