Sands dies of starvation
BELFAST, Northern Ireland
(AP) — Irish Republican Army
guerrilla Bobby Sands died ear
ly Tuesday in the 66th day of his
hunger strike at Belfast's Maze
prison, the British Northern
Ireland Office reported.
It said the 27-year-old Sands,
who had campaigned from his
jail cell and was elected to the
British Parliament on April 9,
died at 1:17 a.m. (5:17 p.m. PDT
Monday) in the prison’s hospital
wing.
His death was expected to
bring a new storm of violence to
this British province, torn by a
decade of bloody underground
warfare between Roman Cath
olic and Protestant extremists.
Sands was the 13th Irish na
tionalist hunger striker to die in
British jails this century and the
first to perish in Northern
Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Office
issued a statement saying: "Mr.
Robert Sands, a prisoner in the
Maze prison, died today at 1:17.
He took his own life by refusing
food and medical intervention
for 66 days."
Sands lapsed into a coma
early Sunday and never
regained consciousness.
His family had been at his
bedside along with a Catholic
priest.
Mobs of rioting Catholic
youths had staged git-and-run
attacks against Belfast police
and British troops with fir
ebombs and acid-filled milk
bottles Monday night as the
emaciated Sands was sinking
toward death.
Ignoring pleas for calm from
Protestant and Catholic leaders,
Sands’ family and Irish nation
alist activist Bernadette Devlin
McAliskey, roaming gangs of up
to 300 youths stoned police and
troops throughout the day in the
Falls Road section of West Bel
fast.
The area once was dubbed
—making the news—
From Associated Press Reports
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pres. Ronald Reagan applied his
soft-sell approach to Democratic congressmen Monday,
assuring them their concerns about specific items in the
budget would be addressed after a crucial House vote on the
overall spending proprosal.
Reagan appeared to be having some success and the
outcome appeared less and less in doubt. Several who had
made no commitment previously emerged from the meeting
fingering gift boxes of presidential cufflinks and indicating
they would support the administration.
As the three hours of meetings at the White House were
breaking up, House Speaker Thomas O’Neill Jr., D-Mass.,
told reporters at the Capitol that he was lobbying his own
party members but was getting no commitments that they
would stay in line.
If Republicans stay solid, a switch of 26 Democrats would
give Reagan his biggest budget victory yet. GOP leaders say
they expect only one Republican to vote against the pre
sident.
PORTLAND — Thirty-nine groups filed a suit today in the
Oregon Court of Appeals to overturn a state administrative
rule prohibiting publicly funded abortions for many poor
women.
The current rule requires that pregnant women be on
welfare at the time of conception if they are to receive a
Medicaid abortion.
The Department of Human Resources rule also limits one
Medicaid abortion to women older than 18 and two for those
younger, except in cases of rape, incest or cases involving
danger of death.
The suit is the fifth of its kind in the United States,
following similar cases in Massachussetts and California
where courts have required Medicaid to pay for medically
necessary abortions, representatives of the groups said.
The suit says the Oregon rule is unconstitutional because
it prevents poor women from having the same choices on
abortion as wealthy women, the representatives said.
Filing the suit were churches, women's groups, medical
and minority organizations.
r
"ambush ally” by British sol
diers and is the heart of Catholic
militancy and Irish Republican
Army sympathy.
Firebombs were hurled at
police patrols in another Cath
olic area, the Short Strand,
where there were two arrests.
Police said mobs overturned
and burned two trucks, and one
policeman was injured.
Police fired plastic bullets to
break up the gangs, but they
quickly reformed on adjacent
streets.
Another hunger striker, Fran
cis Hughes, 25, once the IRA's
most wanted gunman, was in
the 51st day of his fast and con
tinued to deteriorate rapidly.
Hughes' brother, Oliver, 31,
said after spending several
hours at his bedside: "He is
virtually unconscious and ap
pears to be slipping in and out of
a coma. The end can only be a
short time away.”
State court
upholds pot
civil statutes
SALEM (AP) — The Oregon
Court of Appeals today upheld
state laws against possessing
marijuana in rejecting ar
guments that the statutes are
unconstitutionally vague.
In a case from Union County,
Keith Mellinger attacked the
laws in appealing his conviction
of possessing more than one
ounce of marijuana.
Lawyers for Mellinger cited
language forbidding posses
sion of dried leaves and stems
but exempting “mature stalks”
from the prohibition.
The terms, Mellinger con
tended, are not adequately
defined to inform persons of
average intelligence whether an
amount of marijuana they might
possess would make them guilty
of a felony or of a non-criminal
offense.
Possessing one ounce or less
is a civil violation with a max
imum $100 fine.
But the court said the fact that
experts might disagree as to
what is a stalk or stem doesn’t
make the laws unconstitutional
ly vauge.
"The statutes need not be
drafted with such precision that
citizens will never hazard their
liberty upon an incorrect as
sessment of their conduct,” the
court said in an opinion by
Judge William Richardson.
1
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MAPS
The Bookstore is a United States Geological
Survey (USGS) map dealer. We stock
hundreds of maps of Oregon, United States
and the world. Our collection includes maps
from:
• U.S. Forest Service
• Metsker County
• Rand McNally
• American Map Company
• Nystrom
• Hubbard 3-D
• Dymaxion
• USGS
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maps
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