The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 5

www.pantagraph.com The Pantagraph Monday, August 12, 2002 A5 NATIONWORLD NewsWatch Man denies sending anthrax V-J Day parade 'V "I am a loyal American and I love my country," Hatfill told reporters outside his lawyer's office. "I have had nothing to do in any way, shape or form with the mailing of these anthrax letters." Hatfill, who had an American flag pin affixed to his lapel, said he had cooperated fully with authorities only to have what he called defamatory information about him leaked to reporters. He said he understood that authorities and the media had to consider his potential involvement after the letters killed five and sickened more than a dozen people. ASSOCIATED PRESS ALEXANDRIA, Va. A bioweapons expert under scrutiny for the anthrax attacks fiercely denied any involvement with the tainted letters and said Sunday he had cooperated with the investigation only to see his life and work destroyed through speculation and innuendo.

Dr. Steven J. Hatfill said he understood that his expertise in germ warfare would force him to answer questions about last fall's attacks, but said he had never worked with anthrax and there was not a "shred of evidence" he was involved. "This does not, however, give them the right to smear me and gratuitously make a wasteland of my life," he said. Law enforcement officials have described Hatful, 48, as a "person of interest," not a suspect, and said he is one of about 30 people being examined.

On Sunday, a law enforcement official close to the case said the scientist has not "received any more attention than any other person of interest in the investigation." Hatfill's name is the only to have emerged publicly in the investigation. Since then, several questions have surfaced about Hatfill, including what appear to be exaggerations on his resume, his involvement fighting for white rule in the former Rhodesia and whether he lost security clearance while working for a defense contractor. Neither Hatfill nor his lawyer would answer questions about his past, and Hatfill took no questions from the media. But he did say that anyone's life can be "picked apart" for inconsistencies. "I do not claim to have lived a perfect life," he said.

"There are things I would probably do or say differently than I did 10 or 20 or more years ago." 1 i r.mtf Some conjoined twins don't want separation if Grade Schultheis, 2, of Jonesville, pointed to a parade float while sitting with her great-grandmother Evelyn Casey during the 57th Annual V-J Day Parade in Seymour, on Sunday. Sey- mour is the only town in the United States that continuously hon--r-ors the United States' victory over Japan during World War II. NATION urv o- Urn her hoped-for single, "The Fear of Being Alone." "It's not autobiographical," Lori insists, dancing along as her sister sings to the demo tape. The twins are now considering moving from this city about 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia to Nashville, so Reba can follow that dream. "I love it (there).

I'm a Southerner," said Reba, who changed her name from Dori. "She has goals in life," said Lori, the ambulatory and more assertive twin. "The only goal I have is marriage and kids if it ever happens." Their lives as conjoined twins and the question of whether to risk potentially life-threatening surgery are back in the spotlight with the successful separation Tuesday of the 16-month-old Guatamalan twins, Maria de Jesus Quiej Alvarez and Maria Teresa, who had been joined at the head. "I don't live every day thinking about the fact I'm a conjoined twin," Lori said. "It's not the biggest thing of my life." Separation would be a risk for the Schap-pells, who are attached at the left side of each of their skulls and share bone, blood vessels and tissue near their brains.

"The wisdom, all along the way, has always been that it would be more harmful to try and separate them," said Dr. John M. Templeton a former pediatric surgeon at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia who has worked with the Schappells and other ASSOCIATED PRESS READING, Pa. While the doctors who separated conjoined twins in Los Angeles talk about the little girls' prospects for healthy, productive lives, another pair of conjoined twins say that's exactly the life they've lived for 40 years. The women, one a former hospital worker, the other an aspiring country-western singer, say the separation isn't necessary "I don't think it should be done," Lori Schappell told The Associated Press in an interview at the twins' apartment in a high-rise seniors complex.

"You don't mess with what God made, even if it means you enjoy both children for a shorter time." Lori and her sister Reba live a life few people can imagine. They have two distinct brains, but they are joined at the skull, so where one goes, the other must. Reba, who has spina bifida, is 4 inches shorter than Lori, so her sister wheels her around on an adaptive wheeled stool. Both sisters graduated from a public high school, and each has taken college classes. Reba went along for six years while Lori worked full-time in a hospital laundry, a job she gave up in 1996 so Reba could launch a country-music career.

While Reba doesn't have a record contract yet, she has performed in Atlantic City, N.J., Japan and Germany, belting out Newsweek: Bin Laden escaped Afghanistan 'u NEW YORK Osama bin Laden escaped Afghanistan on horseback last December under U.S. fire and rallied Taliban troops from an Afghan stronghold in February, Newsweek magazine reported. Citing two accounts by current and former Taliban members, the magazine reported in its Aug. 19 issue that the al-Qai-da leader fled the Tora Bora of Afghanistan, where U.S. forces were bombing, with 28 people through the rugged I White Mountains.

The en-, tourage traveled in to Pakistan and back to the Afghan moun-; tain stronghold of Shahikot i over five days in December, the magazine said. A former Taliban official and professional guide told the magazine he led bin Laden's group on the journey, some-. times through heavy snow. The guide, who the magazine did not identify, said bin Laden rarely dismounted during the trip. U.S.

officials have said they don't know whether bin Laden is dead or alive. Reba Schappell, left, and Lori Schappell conjoined twins. "I think it would produce brain damage for both of them. And it's just as likely that one or both of them would die," he said. The Schappells, like the Guatemalan twins, are among the 4 percent with the condition joined at the head.

Nearly three-quarters are joined at the chest, the rest at the abdomen or pelvis. The condition occurs when identical twins from a single embryo fail to separate. About 70 percent are female. Gore may get 2nd chance Personal Injury Family Law The Law Office of ALLISON MOSBY-SCOTT Caring help, when you need it most. 662-5084 www.allisonmosby-scott.com there.

I think there's going to be six or seven people running for president, which I like." He said on ABC's "This Week" that Gore "deserves to run again. "Listen, this is a primary process, and I have to be totally neutral in this, and I have talked to many candidates who have told me that they are probably going to run. "But listen, if you're Al Gore, you get up every morning knowing that you got a half a million more votes than George Bush did." lages in remote northern India Sunday, killing at least 43 people, government officials said. Rescue efforts that included helicopter flights were hampered by pouring rain and lack of roads in Uttaranchal state, nearly 185 miles northeast of the Indian capital, New Delhi. Army and paramilitary soldiers called in to help were not expected to reach the area until early Monday, said R.S.

Tolia, Uttaranchal's chief secretary. The death toll mounted Sunday as rescuers battled heavy rain to clear debris and pull bodies from piles of mud, rocks and uprooted trees. Virendra Singh, an official from Tehri-Garhwal district in Uttaranchal, said rescuers recovered 43 bodies from the villages of Marwadi, Medugoan, Kotgaon and Angoda. Computer language pioneer dies at 75 OSLO, Norway Kristen Nygaard, a pioneer in developing programming language for computers who helped lay the basis for the Internet, has died of a heart attack. He was 75.

Nygaard died Saturday in Norway's capital, Oslo, according to media reports. The University of Oslo professor was acclaimed internationally for his work in developing the programming language Simula that laid the basis for MS-DOS and the Internet. Moderate earthquake jolts northern Japan TOKYO A moderate earthquake shook northeastern Japan on Monday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The magnitude 5.2 quake struck at 6:55 a.m. and was centered about 25 miles below the seabed off the east coast of Ao-mori state, the Meteorological Agency said.

Aomori is the northernmost state on Japan's main island of Honshu and lies about 360 miles from Tokyo. The tremor was felt in the towns of Na-gawa and Shimoda. There was no risk of tsunami, powerful waves caused by seismic activity, the agency said. An earthquake of magnitude 5 or higher can cause considerable damage when centered near heavily populated areas. Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, sitting atop four tectonic plates, slabs that move across the earth's surface.

Bus crashes in Mexico, killing 16 people MEXICO CITY A bus crashed through a railing and into a shallow river in northwestern Mexico, killing 16 passengers and injuring two dozen others, emergency officials said Sunday. Officials were investigating whether the driver of the bus fell asleep, causing the crash early Saturday south of Her-mosillo, 990 miles northwest of Mexico City Three of the dead were children. The bus was traveling from Escuinapa, a town south of the tourist resort of Mazatlan on the Pacific coast, to the border city of Tijuana, emergency official Yolando Viilarreal said. All the passengers were Mexicans. It was the third fatal bus crash in Mexico in less than a week.

i From Pantagraph wire services OOn the Net For updates on news before tomorrow morning, log on to The Pantagraph online at: www.pantagraph.com Gasoline tanker crash kills 2 on busy road ORLANDO, Fla. A gaso-line tank truck overturned Sunday and struck a retaining wall on an overpass, bursting into flame and hurling chunks of concrete into the path of traffic below, the Highway Pa-trol said. Two people were killed and five were injured. The heat of the fire damaged the 30-foot-high overpass and engineers were concerned that it was in danger of collapsing, said Highway Patrol Lt. Eddie Herrell.

The overpass will be closed 45 to 60 days for repairs. The truck rolled over and struck the retaining wall on a curving toll road onramp that leads onto Interstate 4. The two people who were killed were passengers in an SUV that went out of control when the falling chunks of crete caused drivers to slam on their brakes and swerve, Her- rellsaid. Herrell said the driver of the SUV was hospitalized in seri-v ous but stable condition and the truck driver was in stable 2 condition. ts "Si ft Aug 22-25 WASHINGTON (AP) Al Gore deserves the chance to run again for the White House after his disputed loss to George W.

Bush in 2000, the Democratic Party chairman said Sunday. "He was robbed, and that's a fact," Terry McAuliffe said. The former vice president has said that he will decide by year's end whether to seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2004. By the next morning, McAuliffe said, "I do believe that the presidential campaign will get off and everybody will be out 9 kids Florida called missing found by paper ASSOCIATED PRESS FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. Using law enforcement profiles, public records and interviews with relatives, a newspaper found nine children declared missing by Florida's child welfare agency The South Florida Sun-Sentinel examined 24 cases involving Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade county children primarily under age 14 whose profiles were available through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Although the paper did not have access to detailed Department of Children Families files, it found more than one-third of the children in four weeks two in less than three hours, it reported Sunday The state's child welfare agency has been under scrutiny since officials acknowledged in April that it had lost track of 5-year-old Rilya Wilson, who had been missing since January 2001. No caseworker checked on her for 15 months. She is still missing. As of last month, DCF could not account for 532 children it said had run away from foster homes or had been abducted by parents. The Sun-Sentinel said it was possible to locate some of the youngsters, including: I Two sisters missing since 1997 have been living in Wisconsin with their mother, whose phone number is listed in directory assistance.

I Four Miami brothers listed as missing since January were seen in their neighborhood, a mile from DCF offices. A boy reporting missing in February was found with his mother in Miami. Come see the best Women's Billiards Players in the world as the Women's Professional Billiards Association comes to Par-A-Dice! Register in Centerfield 9 for your CHANCE TO WIN the actual Brunswick Gibson pool table used in Sunday's WPffA final event. Drawing is August 25 at 4pm. Federal official balks 1 at mine flood hearing SOMERSET, Pa.

The mincers' union and the former head a federal mine safety agency 2 say public hearings are needed to determine what caused a that trapped nine coal 5- miners underground for more than three days. But the current head of the Z. Mine Safety and Health Admin- istration said a public hearing, which would give investigators power to subpoena witnesses and documents, wouldn't reveal any more information than the routine investigation already under way into the accident at I the Quecreek mine. In calling for hearings, Joe Main, national health and safe-ty administrator for the United Mine Workers of America, said the number of U.S. coal miners killed on the job has risen each Z- pf the past three years.

WORLD Rain, landslides kill at least 43 in India LUCKNOW, India Torrents of muddy water from monsoon rains swept away several vil TICKETS on sale in the Par-A-Dice Gift Shop (3091 694-5813 lasis 1 E. Peoria, IL 1-800-PAR-A-DICE www.par-a-dice.com.