News Digest
Credit card machine
bypasses bondsmen
1SAN JOSE, Calif. — Who
needs a bail bondsman to get
out of jail?
Starting this week, Santa Clara
County will offer some suspects
an interactive kiosk where they
can use a credit card to get out of
the slammer within minutes of
being booked.
It’s like an automatic teller ma
chine, but instead of dispensing
cash it grants instant access out
of jail.
The heaviest use is expected
from those arrested for relatively
minor crimes with bails under
$5,000 — well within the limit
many people carry on their credit
cards. Crimes will include van
dalism, assault, drunken driving
and drug possession.
Defendants get the basic bail
amount back from the county
once the case is resolved — as
long as they show up in court. If
they use a bail bond agent or the
kiosk, they pay a $500, nonre
fundable fee.
County officials said the bail
kiosks will reduce taxpayer costs
and jail overcrowding.
Bail bondsmen hate the idea,
claiming the service is illegal be
cause it’s not state-licensed, like
they must be. They also com
plain that it’s unfair competition.
“The first time I heard about
this was last week, and I was
flabbergasted,” said Ted Wallace,
president of the Santa Clara
County Professional Bail Associ
ation. “We’re definitely investi
gating our legal options."
Judicial Solutions, the compa
ny that operates the kiosk, said it
doesn’t need a license because it
doesn’t put up money for defen
dants, just enables them to tap
into their own credit lines.
“It’s a fairly political product
because the bail industry has had
it to themselves for 240 years,”
said John Bergmann, president of
Judicial Solutions. “But we’re
definitely not bailing out O.J.
Simpson; we’re taking the
crumbs.”
Mother pleads to son:
Get help for your child
2 SALT LAKE CITY — The
mother of a man who allegedly
kidnapped his malnourished
child from a hospital appealed
Sunday for him and his wife to
surrender before their dangerous
ideas about nutrition kill the 20
month-old boy.
Cheryl Gardner worried for
the safety of the little boy as
temperatures dipped below
freezing and snow started to fall
in Utah’s mountains, where
Christopher and Kyndra Fink
are believed to have taken their
boy last month.
“It’s too cold to have that baby
out there. He’s so hungry,”
Gardner said at a press
conference organized by the FBI.
A security camera showed
Fink taking the boy, David, from
Primary Children’s Medical
Center on Sept. 19, five days after
Kyndra Fink’s family admitted
the severely malnourished child.
He weighed 16 pounds,
which is about the size of an
average 6-month-oid, and had
been fed only watermelon and
lettuce according to a diet his
father believed would allow the
boy to live forever.
The last confirmed sighting of
the family was about 50 miles
southeast of Salt Lake on Sept. 25.
Cardoso wins in Brazil
election, polls show
3RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil —
Facing an uncertain economic
future, Brazilians stuck with the
incumbent for the first time in
their history Sunday and re
elected Fernando Henrique
Cardoso as president, exit polls
showed.
Cardoso won with 56 percent
of the vote compared to 29
percent for his closest rival,
former labor leader Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva of the Workers
Party, surveys conducted by the
respected Ibope polling institute
said. Ibope questioned 54,000
voters nationwide.
The outcome was no surprise.
Cardoso, a 67-year-old
sociologist, was the
overwhelming favorite in
Sunday’s national elections,
getting a boost from voters’ fear
of a deepening economic crisis.
“The important thing is not to
switch drivers in the middle of
the race,” said Marcio Karte, a
Rio newsstand dealer who
voted for Cardoso.
About 106 million voters went
to the polls Sunday to choose a
president, 27 governors, all 513
federal deputies, a third of the
81-seat Senate and 1,405 state
legislators. Voting is mandatory
for Brazilians between the ages
J
of 18 and 70.
For weeks, the presidential
race has been mostly a one-man
show. Cardoso held steady even
as Brazil lost the confidence of
international investors — and
despite his promises to cut
spending and maybe raise taxes
if elected.
HATO threatens strikes
to end bloodshed
4BELGRADE, Yugoslavia —
Sharply opposed to NATO
airstrikes on Yugoslavia, Russia
sent its foreign and defense
ministers Sunday to call on
President Slobodan Milosevic,
whose generals were preparing
to defend the country against an
assault.
NATO is threatening attacks to
end seven months of bloodshed
in Kosovo — despite signs Serbs
may be ready for a compromise
on how the rebellious Serb
province should be governed.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor
Ivanov and Defense Minister Igor
Sergeyev met with Milosevic,
Serbian President Milan
Milutinovic, and Yugoslavia’s
top defense officials.
Kosovo is in southern Serbia,
the dominant of two republics
remaining in Yugoslavia.
A statement from Milosevic’s
office issued after the meeting
said any NATO strike would be
an “act of aggression” and
asserted that in Kosovo the
overall situation is “improving
daily.”
Russia is the Serbs’ main ally,
sharing bonds of religion and
joint Slavic roots.
Serbian police and the
Yugoslav army have routed
separatist Kosovo Albanian
rebels during the seven-month
crackdown. The conflict has
killed hundreds — most of them
ethnic Albanian civilians — and
driven hundreds of thousands
of villagers from their homes.
Forest officials defend
policy on wolverines
5 KLAMATH FALLS —
Winema National Forest
officials are dismissing claims
by environmental groups that
the forest is not considering that
wolverines that may be living
on a proposed timber sale.
Officials say the wolverine, a
threatened species in Oregon
since 1973, not only is part of the
forest’s management plan, but
that workers have been searching
in vain for the animal all
summer, but have found none.
The Oregon Natural
Resources Council and 22 other
conservation groups have
appealed the proposed 2,110
acre Cold Springs Switchback
timber sale on the Winema’s
Klamath Ranger District. The
timber sale would yield 13.8
million board feet of timber.
ONRC spokesman Wendell
Wood said the groups want to
protect wolverines in an
ecosystem that spans 350,000
acres in the southern Oregon
Cascades and includes the
proposed timber sale area.
The wolverine was proposed
for listing under the federal
Endangered Species Act in
1994. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service found insufficient
grounds for a listing, but federal
and state biologists have been
trying to identify local
wolverine populations.
Wood said nearly 300,000
acres of the ecosystem are
already protected by the Sky
Lakes Wilderness Area and
Crater Lake National Park.
— The Associated Press
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