News Digest
CNN announces major
changes to schedule
1NEW YORK — CNN an
nounced a major overhaul of
its schedule on Wednesday,
changing many of its anchors dur
ing the day, adding more news
programs on the weekend and
starting a documentary series on
Sunday nights.
It will be the most dramatic on
air evidence of changes at the
struggling news network since for
mer ABC executive Rick Kaplan
took over as CNN president last
summer.
“Our overall strategy is to em
phasize CNN’s commitment to
hard news reporting, depth and
content,” said Sid Bedingfield,
vice president of CNN/USA.
Christiane Amanpour will nar
rate the first edition of “CNN Per
spectives,” the documentary se
ries airing Sunday nights from 8 to
9 p.m. on Jan. 18. The first show,
"Virus Hunters,” will be about sci
entists who track deadly diseases.
CNN will add 4 1/2 hours of
news broadcasts on the weekend,
canceling feature programs such
as “Future Watch” and “Comput
er Connections.” Senior White
House correspondent Wolf Blitzer
will be the new host of the Sunday
program, “Late Edition.”
On weekdays, CNN will expand
its 8 p.m. EST news broadcast to
an hour and move “Inside Poli
tics” from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. An
chors Donna Kelley and Leon Har
ris will be reunited on CNN’s early
morning news segment.
CNN Senior Vice President
Frank Sesno will co-anchor the
noon newscast with Jeanne
Meserve.
Jim Moret will be the new an
chor of “Newsnight,” airing at
midnight weekdays. The broad
cast will originate from Los Ange
les and contain an increased em
phasis on Asia and the Pacific.
Kaplan has created a new unit
to generate more special reports.
Many of them have aired at 10
p.m. weeknights, where CNN is
planning more changes that Bed
ingfield wouldn’t talk about.
CNN, which recently hired
longtime ABC correspondent Jeff
Greenfield and Judd Rose, contin
ues to look for a big-name anchor.
The schedule changes take ef
fect Monday.
Human-body exhibit
sparks controversy
2 MANNHEIM, Germany — The
museum exhibit starts with pa
per-thin slices of an organ. Then,
visitors move on to a room filled
with skinless corpses propped up
or hanging from wires.
“A Glimpse into the Human
Body” is drawing big crowds as
well as some criticism.
Waits of up to three hours are
common for the show at the State
Museum for Technology and La
bor in Mannheim. More than
200,000 people have seen the pre
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served bodies and body parts
since the exhibit opened in Octo
ber. It mns through January.
Church leaders say the exhibit
is degrading to human dignity.
But organizers say real-life dis
plays such as the lung of a heavy
smoker can teach lessons about
health and disease better than any
textbook.
“The authenticity fascinates,”
said Gunther von Hagens, an
anatomy professor at the Univer
sity of Heidelberg who developed
the “plastination” technique used
to preserve the bodies.
Plastination involves dunking
the bodies in chilled acetone and
draining them of water, which is
then replaced with molten plastic
that later hardens.
Glistening from the plastic,
each body highlights a different
aspect of the human anatomy,
such as musculature, the nervous
system or the circulatory system.
During a recent visit, some
viewers expressed disgust; others
made jokes. “He must have
jumped out of his skin,” one visi
tor quipped about a male figure
holding his skin draped over his
arm like an overcoat.
Canada gives natives
long-sought apology
3 TORONTO — Canada made an
unprecedented apology today
to the nation’s native peoples, ex
pressing particular regret for the
“tragedy” of past decades of abuse
at federally funded boarding
schools.
The statement of reconciliation
was read aloud by Indian Affairs
Minister Jane Stewart, then pre
sented to five senior native lead
ers at a ceremony on Parliament
Hill in Ottawa.
The apology — sought for years
by native leaders — was part of a
sweepinggovemment initiative to
improve its strained relations with
Indian and Inuit communities.
More explicitly than ever before,
the government expressed regret
at past oppression of aboriginals
and pledged to support native self
government.
The so-called residential
schools were a key element of the
assimilation policies implement
ed by past governments. More
than 80 of the church-run, govern
ment-funded schools operated
across Canada for nearly a century
starting in the 1880s.
Hundreds of former pupils have
told investigators of rapes, beat
ings, suicides, suspicious deaths
and humiliating punishments at
the schools.
The government pledged $245
million to fund counseling and
treatment programs for victims of
abuse at the schools.
Stewart also promised unspeci
fied funds to improve life on reser
vations, including programs for
health care, youth employment
and career development.
The government initiative was
hailed by the head of the national
assembly of Indian chiefs as a
“historic opportunity.”
GM can now change,
end health benefits
4 CINCINNATI — A federal ap
peals court ruled Wednesday
that General Motors Corp. had the
right to change or end lifetime
health benefits that 84,000 work
ers claim the company promised
them before they retired.
If the ruling stands, it will dam
age the trust employees place in
their benefits packages — and in
their employers, one analyst said.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals rejected the retirees’
claims that the automaker broke
its promise to provide them with
free lifetime health care benefits.
The company said the ruling
supports what it has been doing
all along.
“GM provides a benefits pack
age that is competitive with the
premier companies in American
industry. From time to time, GM
has adjusted this benefits package
to meet business and employee
needs in a changing, competitive
environment,” company
spokesman Chuck Licari said.
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“Such adjustments are common
at GM and all other major employ
ers.”
Raymond Fay, lawyer for the
plaintiffs, said he is considering
asking the U.S. Supreme Court to
review the decision. Fay said the
ruling would give companies a
free hand to change benefits they
promised to employees.
Petition would end
affirmative action
5 OLYMPIA, Wash. — An initia
tive petition to roll back many
affirmative action programs in
Washington moved a step closer
Wednesday to qualifying for leg
islative consideration.
Secretary of State Ralph
Munro’s office said the number of
signatures gathered in support of
Initiative 200 came to 280,511,
about 4,000 fewer than the num
ber claimed by backers who
turned in the petition last week,
but about 100,000 more than are
required.
Munro’s staff next week will be
gin a random sample check to de
termine how many of the signa
tures are those of registered voters
and therefore valid. To be certi
fied, the measure must contain at
least 179,248 signatures of regis
tered voters.
The measure would ban state
and local governments from con
sidering race or gender in hiring,
contracting or college admissions.
Mexican governor
resigns after deaths
B MEXICO CITY — The gover
nor of the southern state of Chi
apas submitted his resignation to
day following allegations he
ignored warnings about the mas
sacre of 45 Indians by supporters
of his government.
Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro offered
his resignation at noon, and the
Chiapas state legislature was
meeting to consider it.
The probable replacement was
federal congressman Roberto Al
bores Guillen. A joint committee
of the national Senate and House
was meeting to consider Albores’
request to step down from Con
gress.
Ruiz Ferro's private secretary,
Alejandrino Bastar Cordero,
would not say why the governor
wanted to resign.
But the resignation appeared
prompted by the Dec. 22 massacre
of 45 unarmed Indians — most of
them women and children — by
gunmen allegedly linked to the
ruling Institutional Revolutionary
Party, of which Ruiz Ferro is a
member.
The gunmen burst into the ham
let of Acteal as villagers prayed in
their wooden church, hunted
down fleeing villagers and shot
them—almost all in the back.
Officials of the diocese in San
Cristobal de las Casas called Ruiz
Ferro's office as the massacre be
gan to report gunfire in the area.
Ruiz Ferro's government secretary
said he called local police, who
told him the village was quiet.*’
The state government also was
accused of hurriedly collecting
the bodies and rushing them to the
state capital in what critics said
was an attempt to cover up the
scope of the massacre.
Man’s diary fails
to prove ties to Nazis
7 SAO PAULO, Brazil —The di
ary a German immigrant
stashed in safe deposit boxes be
fore he died in 1083 does not back
up charges that he was a Nazi
agent or that the fortune he left be
hind was plundered from Jews,
investigators said Wednesday.
Albert Blume, who arrived in
Brazil in 1938, both praised and
criticized the Nazis in the diary.
But mostly it describes his family,
including a Jewish great-grandfa
ther whom he describes as “the
tragedy of my life,” historian Di
eter Strauss said.
Strauss prepared a summary of
the 1,084-page diary, which end
ed in 1939, for a government com
mission investigating fugitive
Nazis in Brazil and whether they
brought looted Jewish wealth
here.
The diary and a fortune estimat
ed to be worth ,$4 million were
locked up for more than 14 years
in two safe deposit boxes in a
branch of the government-owned
Bancode Brasil in SaoPaulo.
Opened Nov. 28, the boxes con
tained 230 items, including ru
bies, sapphires, emeralds, gold
fillings and dental crowns and
cash.
But it was the diary that most in
terested the commission.
Henry Sobel, a senior rabbi at
Sao Paulo’s Jewish Congregation
and member of the commission,
said at the time that the diary
would shed light on the Nazi net
work in Brazil.
But Strauss said Wednesday it
was “basically a chronicle of the
Blume family.”
— Compiled from
AP wire reports
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